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Updated: Dec 9, 2025

Spatial Separation of Molecular Conformers and Clusters
Published on: January 9, 2014
Spatial Separation of the Conformers of Methyl Vinyl Ketone
Jia Wang1, Ardita Kilaj2, Lanhai He1
1Center for Free-Electron Laser Science, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY, Notkestrasse 85, 22607 Hamburg, Germany.
Abstract:
Methyl vinyl ketone (C4H6O) is a volatile, labile organic compound of importance in atmospheric chemistry. We prepared a molecular beam of methyl vinyl ketone with a rotational temperature of 1.2(2) K and demonstrated the spatial separation of the s-cis and s-trans conformers of methyl vinyl ketone using the electrostatic deflector. The resulting sample density was 1.5(2) × 108 cm-3 for the direct beam in the laser ionization region. These conformer-selected methyl vinyl ketone samples are well suited for conformer-specific chemical reactivity studies such as in Diels-Alder cycloaddition reactions.
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