Penning collisions between supersonically expanded metastable helium atoms and laser-cooled lithium atoms
arXiv:1901.02482 · doi:10.1063/1.5063709
Abstract
We describe an experimental setup comprised of a discharge source for supersonic beams of metastable helium atoms and a magneto-optical trap (MOT) for ultracold lithium atoms that makes it possible to study Penning ionization and associative ionization processes at high ion count rates. The cationic reaction products are analyzed using a novel ion detection scheme which allows for mass selection, a high ion extraction efficiency and a good collision-energy resolution. The influence of elastic He-Li collisions on the steady-state Li atom number in the MOT is described, and the collision data are used to estimate the excitation efficiency of the discharge source. We also show that Penning collisions can be directly used to probe the temperature of the Li cloud without the need for an additional time-resolved absorption or fluorescence detection system.
arXiv commentaccepted by J. Chem. Phys. (Dec. 2018)
References in corpus (14)
- Bose-Einstein Condensation of Metastable Helium
- Observation of Quantum Effects in sub Kelvin Cold Reactions
- Cold and trapped metastable noble gases
- Low-energy molecular collisions in a permanent magnetic trap
- Cold heteromolecular dipolar collisions
- Large Effects of Electric Fields on Atom-Molecule Collisions at Millikelvin Temperatures
- Improved setup for producing slow beams of cold molecules using a rotating nozzle
- Collisional Properties of Cold Spin-Polarized Metastable Neon Atoms
- A pulsed, low-temperature beam of supersonically cooled free radical OH molecules
- Quantum rainbow scattering at tunable velocities
- Heteronuclear ionizing collisions between laser-cooled metastable helium atoms
- Production of rotationally cold methyl radicals in pulsed supersonic beams
- Quantum-State Controlled Penning Ionization Reactions between Ultracold Alkali and Metastable Helium Atoms
- Ab initio interaction potentials and scattering lengths for ultracold mixtures of metastable helium and alkali-metal atoms
Cited by in corpus (8)
- Two-dimensional electronic spectroscopy of an ultracold gas
- Optical Quenching of Metastable Helium Atoms using Excitation to the State
- Suppression of Penning ionization by orbital angular momentum conservation
- Single-Source, Collinear Merged-Beam Experiment for the Study of Reactive Neutral-Neutral Collisions
- Preparation of individual magnetic sub-levels of He(S) in a supersonic beam using laser optical pumping and magnetic hexapole focusing
- A versatile apparatus for simultaneous trapping of multiple species of ultracold atoms and ions to enable studies of low energy collisions and cold chemistry
- Spin-state-controlled chemi-ionization reactions between metastable helium atoms and ground-state lithium atoms
- Sensitive detection of metastable NO and \ce{N2} by reactive collisions with laser-excited Li