Ionisation und fragmentation of molecules und clusters

The ion-induced fragmentation of molecules and clusters is a process of fundamental importance in various areas of science and technology ranging from the physics and chemistry of upper planetary atmospheres to the understanding of radiation damage to biological tissue. Experiments in which all fragment ions emitted after a particular collision are detected in coincidence, can not only provide valuable information about the state of the intermediate multiply-charged molecular ion, they also shed light on the excitation and fragmentation dynamics. In our experiments we use a time- and position sensitive multi-particle detector to establish correlations between the charged fragments from a particular molecular break-up. In case of a Coulomb-fragmentation where all fragements emerge as positive ions this allows a kinematically complete study of the fragmentation process. more

Multi-coincidence detectors

Crucial for collision experiments with low energy ion beams are the detector systems needed for the observation of the involved reaction products. It was the purpose of the EU network Low Energy Ion beam Facilities (LEIF) Project 4 "Common tools and multi-coincidence detectors" to coordinate detector developments and to simplify the access to the still scattered information about performance and possible applications of the existing techniques. more