A new instrument for kinetics and branching ratio studies of gas phase collisional processes at very low temperatures

Abstract

A new instrument dedicated to the kinetic study of low-temperature gas phase neutral-neutral reactions, including clustering processes, is presented. It combines a supersonic flow reactor with Vacuum Ultra-Violet (VUV) synchrotron photoionization time of flight mass spectrometry. A photoion-photoelectron coincidence detection scheme has been adopted to optimize the particle counting efficiency. The characteristics of the instrument are detailed along with its capabilities illustrated through a few results obtained at low temperatures (< 100 K) including a {photoionization spectrum} of n-butane, the detection of formic acid dimer formation as well as the observation of diacetylene molecules formed by the reaction between the C${}_2$H radical and C${}_2$H${}_2$.

References in corpus (2)

• Mid-Infrared Frequency Comb Fourier Transform Spectrometer
• Direct Frequency Comb Measurement of OD + CO -> DOCO Kinetics