With support from the Chemistry Research Instrumentation and Facilities: Instrument Development (CRIF:ID) Program, the Department of Chemistry at the University of Arizona will develop under the direction of Mark A. Smith a molecular beam-variable temperature ion trap. This 22 pole trap will allow for: a) multiple reaction probes of trapped ions including the capability to interact trapped ions with low velocity, dense molecular beams of condensable species and to chemically probe reaction products, b) in situ synthesis of complex molecular ions using pulsed reagent gas/buffer gas collisional cooling for subsequent beam species rate measurements, and c) future studies using other techniques such as state-selected laser pumping of ions, velocity selection of neutral beams of molecules or radicals, and extension of these techniques into the temperature range below 1 K.
This project will be carried out in collaboration with Freiburg University. The proposed instrumentation development will enable the collaborators to investigate very low energy simple ion reactions of interstellar interest as a function of temperature, beginning at very low and increasing to high temperatures (4-800K). It combines supersonic beam expansion techniques perfected in the Arizona Laboratory with highly sophisticated 22-pole ion trap technology at Freiburg. . The cooperation of the two laboratories in development of this instrument in parallel with instrumentation for the study of hydrogen atom and low energy electron-ion recombination presents a unique educational resource for the training of students in both astrochemistry/laboratory astrophysics as well as general reaction dynamics. The instrument will find direct application in fundamental studies of reaction dynamics as well as in chemical analysis, spectroscopy and complex ion synthesis.
