Ellipticity-dependent of multiple ionisation methyl iodide cluster using 532 nm nanosecond laser

ABSTRACT

The dependence of multiply charged ions on laser ellipticity in methyl iodide clusters with 532 nm nanosecond laser was measured using a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. The intensities of multiply charged ions I^q+(q = 2–4) with circularly polarised laser pulse were clearly higher than those with linearly polarised laser pulse but the intensity of single charged ions I⁺ was inverse. And the dependences of ions on the optical polarisation state were investigated and a flower petal and square distribution for single charged ions (I⁺, C⁺) and multiply charged ions (I²⁺, I³⁺, I⁴⁺, C²⁺) were observed, respectively. A theoretical calculation was also proposed to simulate the distributions of ions and theoretical results fitted well with the experimental ones. It indicated that the high multiphoton ionisation probability in the initial stage would result in the disintegration of big clusters into small ones and suppress the production of multiply charged ions.

KEYWORDS:

• Laser polarisation
• multiply charged ions
• methyl iodide cluster
• nanosecond laser

Acknowledgements

Bin Tang and Wuduo Zhao contributed equally to this work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant no.11004190]; Science and Technology Foundation of China Southern Power Grid [no. K-GX2013-016]; and the National Special Fund for the Development of Major Research Equipment and Instruments [grant no. 2011YQ05006903] and [grant no. 2011YQ05006904].