Recent progress in the cooling and trapping of atoms and molecules at ultralow temperatures has opened up perspectives for the study of chemical processes in a new physical regime. A universal method applicable to molecular ions is sympathetic cooling by the Coulomb interaction with laser-cooled atomic ions in a trap which results in the formation of spatially ordered structures (�Coulomb crystals�) in which single ions can be observed, addressed and manipulated. In combination with the accurate state preparation of the ions using threshold photoionization prior to sympathetic cooling of the translational motion, this approach allows the study of chemical reactions with fully-state selected ions at sensitivities on the level of single particles. In the talk we present recent results on reaction studies with Coulomb-crystallized atomic and molecular ions in traps. We highlight reactions of fully state-selected and spatially localized molecular ions with internally cold neutral molecules from a molecular beam illustrating the high degree of control which can be achieved using Coulomb-crystal techniques. We also present recent results of experiments performed in combined ion-atom (�hybrid�) traps which enable the study of reactive processes between ions and ultracold atoms at collision energies down to the millikelvin regime. We discuss special features of ultralow-energy ion-neutral reactions using highl-level ab-initio and quantum dynamics calculations and present an outlook on future developments.

Cold and controlled chemistry with Coulomb-crystallized ions

245th National Meeting (2013)

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