Cluster Impact Chemistry

Role of cohesive energy in droplet fragmentation

Using molecular-dynamics simulation, we investigate the fragmentation behavior of droplets after collision with a wall. We demonstrate that the ratio of the impact to the cohesive energy E(coh) of the droplet is the key quantity characterizing the droplet fragmentation process. To show this both van der Waals-bonded Ar and N(2) droplets and polar H(2)O droplets are studied. If the impact energy per molecule E<(0.35-0.4)E(coh), the droplet is reflected without fragmenting. Beyond that impact energy fragmentation of the droplet abruptly starts. At E=E(coh), the fragmentation process already results in a fine dispersal of the droplet into daughter droplets; the maximum fragment contains only less than 4% of the initial droplet mass and around one-third of the droplet has been shattered into isolated molecules. The disintegration process continuously increases with collision energy. These findings are relevant for the process of droplet fragmentation as used in the method of impact desolvation of electrosprayed microdroplets mass spectrometry.

Precise thermodynamic control of high pressure jet expansions

We describe an experimental setup for supersonic jet expansions of supercritical fluids. It is characterized by well-defined thermodynamic values to allow systematic investigations of pressure and temperature effects on molecular beam parameters. The design permits stagnation temperatures T(0)=225-425 K with a thermal stability DeltaT(0)<30 mK and stagnation pressures p(0)=0.2-12 MPa that are measured with 0.05% precision. For optimum stability, gas reservoir, pressure transducer, and gauge amplifier are temperature-controlled, and a feedback loop permits active pressure stabilization using a pulseless syringe pump. With this approach stagnation pressures can be reproduced and kept constant to Deltap(0)<2.9 kPa. As a result, flow velocity and kinetic energy of molecular beams can be controlled with maximum accuracy.

Mechanical Simulation of the Pressure and the Relaxation to Thermal Equilibrium of a Hot and Dense Rare Gas Cluster

A cold atomic cluster can be very rapidly heated and compressed by a hypersonic impact at a hard surface. The impact can be simulated by computing a classical trajectory for the motion of the atoms. By suddenly confining the hot and dense cluster within a rigid container, it is possible to monitor the time evolution of the force acting on the faces of the container. It is found that the pressure computed this way very rapidly decays to a time-independent value. After a somewhat longer time, this value reproduces the value for the pressure computed as the sum of the kinetic and internal pressures. This agreement is expected for a system in equilibrium. These observations support the conclusion that there is a fast relaxation to thermal equilibrium in these essentially hard-sphere systems. The deviation from equilibrium is primarily due to the propagation of shock waves within the cluster. The equilibrium pressure can reach up to the megabar range.

Comparison of classical and quantum dynamics for collinear cluster scattering

The collinear dynamics of a cluster of four particles colliding with a fixed particle representing a surface is investigated using a four-dimensional wave packet approach. The properties of the system are chosen to resemble a water cluster interacting with graphite, but a deeper surface-particle potential is also considered causing significant dissociation of the cluster. Having four different product arrangement channels the system is quantum mechanically demanding but still manageable. The dynamical richness makes it a suitable benchmark system for evaluation of classical and quantum/classical schemes. The average energy transferred to the cluster and the three dissociation probabilities are presented as function of the initial state of the cluster. In addition to wave packet data, results obtained using quasiclassical as well as Wigner sampled classical trajectories are presented. The main conclusion is that classical mechanics can describe the dynamics of the system in a very satisfactory way. Including zero-point energy in the classical simulations is particularly important for a good description of dissociation but less important for energy transfer.

Low-energy impact of X−(H2O)n (X=Cl,I) onto solid surface

We investigated dissociation of X-(H2O)n (X = Cl, I, n = 13-31) by the impact onto a (La0.7Ce0.3)B6(100) surface at a collision energy Ecol of 1-5 eV per water molecule in a tandem time-of-flight mass spectrometer equipped with a translation-energy analyzer. The mechanism of the dissociation was elucidated on the basis of the measurements of the mass spectrum and the translational energies of the product anions, X-(H2O)m (m = 0-4), scattered from the surface. It was concluded that (1) the parent cluster anion impacted on the surface undergoes dissociation on the surface under quasiequilibrium with its characteristic time varying with Ecol and n, and (2) the total collision energy introduced is partitioned preferentially to the translational motions of the products on the surface and to the rotational, the vibrational, and the lattice vibrational motions (surface) in this order. The quasiequilibrium model is applicable, even at the collision energy as low as 1 eV, because the translational modes are found to be statistically distributed while the other modes are not much populated by dynamical and energetics limitation.

Above the surface multifragmentation of surface scattered fullerenes

C(60) (-) ions were scattered from a gold surface at impact energies of 80-900 eV. The C(n) (-) fragments abundance distribution (odd and even) and the sharp fragmentation threshold observed, point at a prompt shattering event. The measured angle and energy distributions of the C(n) (-) fragments (n=2-12) provide clear evidence for a multifragmentation process where the superheated fullerenes leave the surface "intact" and disintegrate away from the surface.