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arXiv · 2008.11407

Trapping, cooling, and photodissociation analysis of state-selected H$\_2^+$ ions produced by (3+1) multiphoton ionization

Julian Schmidt·Thomas Louvradoux·Johannes Heinrich·Nicolas Sillitoe·Malcolm Simpson·Jean-Philippe Karr·Laurent Hilico
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Abstract

We report on the production of cold, state-selected H$_2^+$ molecular ions in a linear RF trap. The ions are produced by (3+1) resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionisation (REMPI) of H$_2$, and sympathetically cooled by laser-cooled Be$^+$ ions. After demonstrating and characterizing the REMPI process, we use photodissociation by a deep UV laser at 213~nm to verify the high vibrational purity of the produced H$_2^+$ ion samples. Moreover, the large difference between the photodissociation efficiencies of ions created in the $v=0$ and $v=1$ levels provides a way to detect a $v=0 \to 1$ transition. These results pave the way towards high-resolution vibrational spectroscopy of H$_2^+$ for fundamental metrology applications.

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Julian Schmidt, Thomas Louvradoux, Johannes Heinrich, Nicolas Sillitoe, Malcolm Simpson, Jean-Philippe Karr, Laurent Hilico. 2020-08-26. Trapping, cooling, and photodissociation analysis of state-selected H$\_2^+$ ions produced by (3+1) multiphoton ionization. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevapplied.14.024053

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