Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 24, 2025

Measurement and Analysis of Atomic Hydrogen and Diatomic Molecular AlO, C2, CN, and TiO Spectra Following Laser-induced Optical Breakdown
Published on: February 14, 2014
Electron transfer mediated decay of alkali dimers attached to He nanodroplets
L Ben Ltaief1, M Shcherbinin1, S Mandal2
1Department of Physics and Astronomy, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. ltaief@phys.au.dk mudrich@phys.au.dk.
Abstract:
Alkali metal dimers attached to the surface of helium nanodroplets are found to be efficiently doubly ionized by electron transfer mediated decay (ETMD) when photoionizing the helium droplets. This process is evidenced by detecting in coincidence two energetic ions created by Coulomb explosion and one low-kinetic energy electron. The kinetic energy spectra of ions and electrons are reproduced by simple model calculations based on diatomic potential energy curves, and are in agreement with ab initio calculations for the He-Na2 and He-KRb systems. This work demonstrates that ETMD is an important decay channel in heterogeneous nanosystems exposed to ionizing radiation.
Related Concept Videos
Deactivation Processes: Jablonski Diagram
¹H NMR of Labile Protons: Deuterium (²H) Substitution
Molecular Orbital Theory II
Types of Radioactivity
Alpha (α) decay is the emission of an α particle from the nucleus. For example, polonium-210 undergoes α decay:
¹³C NMR: ¹H–¹³C Decoupling
A broadband decoupling technique is used to simplify these complex, sometimes overlapping, signals. Broadband decoupling relies on a...
UV–Vis Spectroscopy: Molecular Electronic Transitions

