PHOTODEPLETION EXPERIMENT ON RARE GAS METAL CLUSTER COMPLEXES: AN ALTERNATIVE TECHNIQUE

摘要

An experimental setup for the investigation of the optical properties of small metal clusters in gas phase is described. Rare gas metal cluster complexes are produced in a temperature variable laser vaporization source. Optical absorption spectra are obtained by measuring the photodepletion efficiency of the cation complexes. The depleted and reference signals are extracted from the same set of cluster pulses which allows a substantial reduction of the error due to the source pulse to pulse intensity fluctuation. The UV-visible absorption spectrum of V_4Xe~+ is presented and compared to the V_4Ar~+ visible absorption spectrum reported previously.