Ionization detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy

Figure 3.6-5 Energy-level diagram illustrating the two excitation steps of Ionization Detected Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy (IDSRS).

S Ionization detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy (IDSRS)... 

The methods of nonlinear Raman spectroscopy, i. e. spontaneous hyper Raman scattering (based on the hyperpolarizability) and coherent nonlinear Raman scattering (based on the third-order-nonlinear susceptibilities) are discussed in detail in Sec. 3.6.1. In Sec. 3.6.2 the instrumentation needed for these types of nonlinear spectroscopy is described. In this section we present some selected, typical examples of hyper Raman scattering (Sec. 6.1.4.1), coherent anti-Stokes Raman. scattering (Sec. 6.1.4.2), stimulated Raman gain and inverse Raman spectroscopy (Sec. 6.1.4.3), photoacoustic Raman spectroscopy (Sec. 6.1.4.4) and ionization detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy (Sec. 6.1.4.5). 

In the first part of this chapter the experimental techniques of linear and nonlinear Raman spectroscopy of gases are reviewed. The nonlinear techniques (Stimulated Raman Gain Spectroscopy, Inverse Raman Spectroscopy, Coherent Anti-Stokes Raman Spectroscopy, Photo-Acoustic Raman Spectroscopy, and Ionization-Detected Stimulated Raman Spectroscopy) have the capability of very high resolution, limited by the linewidths of the lasers used and pressure broadening effects. 

Fig. 7 Raman gain = stimulated Raman gain spectroscopy (SRGS), inverse Raman = inverse Raman spectroscopy (IRS) or stimulated Raman loss spectroscopy (SRLS), coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy (CARS), photoacoustic Raman spectroscopy (PARS), or ionization-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy (IDSRS). In the following sections, the various methods are briefly described. More detailed information can be found in books [59-61], reviews [45,46,57,58,62,63] and conference reports [64-73].

P Esherick, A Owyoung. Ionization-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy. Chem Phys Lett 103 235-240, 1983. 

Hartland, BF Henson, VA Venturo, RA Hertz, PM Felker. Applications of ionization-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy in molecular-beam studies. J Opt Soc Am B7 1950-1959, 1990. 

A technique which combines the high sensitivity of resonant laser ionization methods with the advantages of nonlinear coherent Raman spectroscopy is called IDSRS (ionization detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy). The excitation process, illustrated in Figure 5, can be briefly described as a two-step photoexcitation process followed by ion/electron detection. In the first step two intense narrow-band lasers (ct L, 0) ) are used to vibrationally excite the molecule via the stimulated Raman process. The excited molecules are then selectively ionized in a second step via a two- or multiphoton process. If there are intermediate resonant states involved (as state c in Figure 5), the method is called REMPI (resonance enhanced multi-photon ionization)-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy. The technique allows an increase in sensitivity of over three orders of magnitude because ions can be detected with much higher sensitivity than photons. 

Kim, W., Schaeffer, M.W., Lee, S., Chung, J.S., and Felker, P.M. (1999) Intermolecular vibrations of naphthalene trimer by ionization-detected stimulated Raman spectroscopy. J. Chem. Phys.,... 

From the sophisticated measurements performed in Felker s laboratory it seems that the various versions of ionization-detected. stimulated Raman techniques (with mass analysis) have great capabilities in the high resolution vibrational spectroscopy of weakly bound complexes and clusters. One expects that IDSRS will become increasingly productive in the studies of cluster ground-state structure and dynamics. 

Besides various detection mechanisms (e.g. stimulated emission or ionization), there exist moreover numerous possible detection schemes. For example, we may either directly detect the emitted polarization (oc PP, so-called homodyne detection), thus measuring the decay of the electronic coherence via the photon-echo effect, or we may employ a heterodyne detection scheme (oc EP ), thus monitoring the time evolution of the electronic populations In the ground and excited electronic states via resonance Raman and stimulated emission processes. Furthermore, one may use polarization-sensitive detection techniques (transient birefringence and dichroism spectroscopy ), employ frequency-integrated (see, e.g. Ref. 53) or dispersed (see, e.g. Ref. 54) detection of the emission, and use laser fields with definite phase relation. On top of that, there are modern coherent multi-pulse techniques, which combine several of the above mentioned options. For example, phase-locked heterodyne-detected four-pulse photon-echo experiments make it possible to monitor all three time evolutions inherent to the third-order polarization, namely, the electronic coherence decay induced by the pump field, the djmamics of the system occurring after the preparation by the pump, and the electronic coherence decay induced by the probe field. For a theoretical survey of the various spectroscopic detection schemes, see Ref. 10. 

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