Molecules in Superfluid Helium Nanodroplets : Spectroscopy, Structure, and Dynamics

This open access book covers recent advances in experiments using the ultra-cold, very weakly perturbing superfluid environment provided by helium nanodroplets for high resolution spectroscopic, structural and dynamic studies of molecules and synthetic clusters. The recent infra-red, UV-Vis studies of radicals, molecules, clusters, ions and biomolecules, as well as laser dynamical and laser orientational studies, are reviewed. The Coulomb explosion studies of the uniquely quantum structures of small helium clusters, X-ray imaging of large droplets and electron diffraction of embedded molecules are also described. Particular emphasis is given to the synthesis and detection of new species by mass spectrometry and deposition electron microscopy.

Alkwin Slenczka studied physics and received his doctorate under the supervision of J. Peter Toennies at the Max Planck Institut für Strömungsforschung, Göttingen. As a Feodor Lynen fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, he joined the group of Dudley R. Herschbach at Harvard University as a post-doc. After returning to Germany, he became a research assistant at the Institute of Physical and Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Regensburg. There he habilitated and became an associate professor of Physical Chemistry. His current research deals with micro-solvation in superfluid helium nanodroplets.

Jan Peter Toennies received a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Brown University, Providence USA. He then joined the Physics Department of the University of Bonn to learn about molecular beams in the group of Professor Wolfgang Paul. In 1969, he was appointed as a scientific member of the Max Planck Society and director at the Max Planck Institut (MPI) für Strömungsforschung in Göttingen.  As an emeritus, he continues his research in the successor MPI für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation. He has received numerous international awards including the Stern Gerlach Medal of the German Physical Society.