Knowledge Bank

The ground state of the van der Waals complex $Al+-Ar$ has been characterized using a new configuration of MATI. With no modifications to our existing time-of-flight mass spectrometer, we are able to measure vibrationally resolved electronic structure in the ground state of an ion, $Al-Arx$ clusters are produced in a laser vaporization pulsed-nozzle cluster source. A vibrationally resolved spectrum generated by the single photon transition from the ground state of the neutral to the ion, $Al+-Ar(1\Sigma +)-Al-Ar(2\Pi \%)$, was observed. A fit to the short progression in the ion ground state yields a frequency of $\omega e\prime \prime =67cm-1$, while the appearance of hot bands sets $\Delta G\%\prime \prime =39cm-1$ for the ground state of the neutral. The experimental set-up for MATI along with its applications in characterizing the ground state of molecular ions will be presented.