Coulomb explosion imaging of vibrationally cold dihydrides

Journal Article · Sat May 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993 · Bulletin of the American Physical Society

OSTI ID:281192

Graber, T; Kanter, E P; Vager, Z; Zajfman, D ^[1]

---

1. Argonne National Laboratory, IL (United States)

The Coulomb explosion imaging technique has been applied to the dihydrides NH{sub 2}{sup +}, CH{sub 2}{sup +}, and H{sub 2}O{sup +}. Each of these molecules is thought to posses equilibrium geometries with barriers, of differing heights, to linearity. The cation H{sub 2}O{sup +} has been extensively studied and is known to exhibit a large barrier to linearity, the quasi-linear molecules NH{sub 2}{sup +} and CH{sub 2}{sup +} have substantially smaller barriers and much less is known about them. In order to accurately measure their structure, the molecular ions are prepared vibrationally cold using a supersonic expansion. The distribution of bond angles will be presented for each, of the three dihydrides for both {open_quotes}hot{close_quotes} and {open_quotes}cold{close_quotes} ensembles. Our findings for CH{sub 2}{sup +} conclusively demonstrate that this molecule has a C{sub 2}{nu} minimum and that the zero point energy lies below the linear barrier.

• Research Organization: Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL
• DOE Contract Number: W-31109-ENG-38
• OSTI ID: 281192
• Report Number(s): CONF-9305421--
• Journal Information: Bulletin of the American Physical Society, Journal Name: Bulletin of the American Physical Society Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 38; ISSN 0003-0503; ISSN BAPSA6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
COULOMB EXCITATION
HYDRIDES
MEASURING METHODS
MOLECULAR IONS
VIBRATIONAL STATES
WATER