Observation and Identification of Metastable Excited States in Ultrafast Laser-Ionized Pyridine

• DOI: 10.1007/s13361-012-0346-6
• Publication Date: 2012-02-15T16:27:57Z
• Authors: David B. Foote; Timothy D. Scarbo...; Cornelis J. G. J....
• Keywords: Metastability; Reflectron; Fragmentation; Time-of-Flight

We report on the fragmentation of ionized pyridine (C(5)H(5)N) molecules by focused 50 fs, 800 nm laser pulses. Such ionization produces several metastable ionic states that fragment within field-free drift region a reflectron-type time flight mass spectrometer, with one particular dissociation being leading process. Because is no longer dependent in simple way ion, decay manifested as an unfocused peak spectrum appears at not corresponding to integer mass. A previously-developed method used identify precursor and final masses these ions. The process creates most prevalent shown be C(5)H(5)N(+) → C(4)H(4)(+) + HCN. Simulations confirm this result place restrictions processes for other observed reactions.