| We apply for funding of a new diode-pumped high intensity high repetition rate tunable nanosecond laser system for our group at the Laser Centre Vrije Universiteit. The requested laser system will be used to develop a new method to produce translationally cold molecules and to study vector correlations in oriented photochemistry. In a first new line of research experiments will be performed on a beam of well-defined quantum state-selected molecules to produce cold molecules. When a chemical bond in a molecule is impulsively broken by the absorption of a laser photon the recoil kick imparted on the fragments can easily be on the same order of magnitude as the laboratory velocity of the parent molecule. We will develop a method to spatially direct the recoil kick on one of the fragments to be opposite to the velocity of the parent molecule in a molecular beam. The directionality of the recoil kick on molecular fragments will be used to produce molecular fragments with vanishing speeds. The translationally cold polar molecules will be trapped for further spectroscopic and dynamical studies with ultracold molecules. In a second line of research photochemical experiments will be performed, using quantum state-selected molecules and sophisticated imaging detectors, to establish a firm basis at the quantum level for the understanding of (nonadiabatic) dynamics in chemical bond breaking processes. Recently, we developed a new high speed imaging detector which is able to image with high energy resolution the three-dimensional distribution of recoiling quantum state-selected photofragments. The experiments will aim to measure vector properties and vector correlations in the photodynamics of spatially oriented parent molecules by imaging the spatial anisotropy of the angular momenta of photofragments. The new laser system in combination with our quantum state-to-state slice imaging apparatus will be a unique facility worldwide to develop a new method for the production of cold molecules and to advance our understanding of vector correlations in quantum photochemistry. |
