Velocity-mapped ion imaging is a well-established technique for studying photodissociation dynamics. By using linearly polarized pump and probe beans, the observed image is sensitive to the vector correlations between photofragment velocity, angular momentum, and the parent molecule transition dipole moment. Here we dissociate methyl nitrite, probe the NO fragments by resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization, and velocity map the NO+ photofragments to compare conventional crushed and DC slice ion imaging.  Conventional ion imaging maps NO+ ions by crushing the 3-D Newton ion sphere into a 2-D image.  In DC slice imaging, the 3-D Newton sphere is elongated by DC ion optics. When the  elongated Newton sphere arrives at the detector, a gated voltage pulse selects only a central slice of the ion cloud. In the experiments here both conventional and DC-sliced ion imaging yield similar results, however the vector correlations in the sliced ion image are determined without complex mathematical deconvolution.

Revealing molecular dynamics through DC slice imaging

243rd National Meeting (2012)

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