Related papers: Alkali-helium snowball complexes formed on helium …
The stability of two-component clusters consisting of light (Na or K) and heavy (Rb or Cs) alkali atoms formed on helium nanodroplets is studied by femtosecond laser ionization in combination with mass spectrometry. Characteristic stability…
The reaction of alkali (Na, Cs) clusters with water clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets is studied using femtosecond photo-ionization as well as electron impact ionization. Unlike Na clusters, Cs clusters are found to completely react…
Recently, it was shown how the primary steps of solvation of a single Na$^+$ ion, instantly created at the surface of a nanometer-sized droplet of liquid helium, can be followed at the atomic level [Albrectsen et al. Nature $\textbf{623}$,…
The solvation process of an alkali ion (Na$^+$, K$^+$, Rb$^+$, Cs$^+$) inside a superfluid $^4$He$_{2000}$ nanodroplet is investigated theoretically using liquid $^4$He time-dependent density functional theory at zero temperature. We…
The dynamics following the photoexcitation of Na and Li atoms located on the surface of helium nanodroplets has been investigated in a joint experimental and theoretical study. Photoelectron spectroscopy has revealed that excitation of the…
$^4$He nanodroplets doped with an alkali ion feature a snowball of crystallized layers surrounded by superfluid helium. For large droplets, we predict that a transitional supersolid layer can form, bridging between the solid core and the…
Spectroscopic data on alkali-atom dimers residing on the surface of liquid helium nanodroplets have revealed that they are detected primarily in the weakly bound, metastable, spin-triplet state. Here, by measuring the magnetic Stern-Gerlach…
In 2023, ultrafast pump-probe spectrocopy was used to record the solvation dynamics of a single Na$^+$ ion in a liquid helium droplet, atom-by-atom and with femtosecond time resolution [Albrechtsen \textit{et al., Nature}, 2023,…
We have studied complexes of gold atoms and imidazole (C$_3$N$_2$H$_4$, abbreviated Im) produced in helium nanodroplets. Following the ionization of the doped droplets we detect a broad range of different Au$_m$Im$_n^+$ complexes, however…
Homo- and heteronuclear alkali quartet trimers of the type K_{3-n}Rb_{n} (n=0,1,2,3) formed on helium nanodroplets are probed by one-color femtosecond photoionization spectroscopy. The obtained requencies are assigned to vibrations in…
A frozen, solid helium core, dubbed snowball, is typically observed around cations in liquid helium. Here we discover, using path integral simulations, that around a cationic molecular impurity, protonated methane, the $^4$He atoms are…
Besides the use as cold matrix for spectroscopic studies, superfluid helium droplets have served as a cold environment for the synthesis of molecules and clusters. Since vibrational frequencies of molecules in helium droplets exhibit almost…
Superfluid helium nanodroplets are an ideal environment for the formation of metastable, self-organized dopant nanostructures. However, the presence of vortices often hinders their formation. Here, we demonstrate the generation of…
Alkali dimers, $\mathrm{Ak}_2$, residing on the surface of He nanodroplets are doubly ionized due to multiphoton absorption from an intense, 50-fs laser pulse leading to fragmentation into a pair of alkali cations. Based on the measured…
Helium nanodroplets are doped with cesium and molecular hydrogen and subsequently ionized by electrons. Mass spectra reveal H$_x$Cs$^{+}$ ions that contain as many as 130 hydrogen atoms. Two features in the spectra are striking: First, the…
Dimers of tetracene molecules are formed inside helium nanodroplets and identified through covariance analysis of the emission directions of kinetic tetracene cations stemming from femtosecond laser-induced Coulomb explosion. Next, the…
The microhydration of rock salt (NaCl) molecules was investigated using high-resolution Penning ionization electron spectroscopy (PIES) in helium nanodroplets. Although model calculations predict that NaCl molecules are fully submerged…
Rubidium dimers residing on the surface of He nanodroplets are doubly ionized by an intense fs laser pulse leading to fragmentation into a pair of $\mathrm{Rb^+}$ ions. We show that the kinetic energy of the $\mathrm{Rb^+}$ fragment ions…
We report on the production and study of stable, highly charged droplets of superfluid helium. Using a novel experimental setup we produce neutral beams of liquid helium nanodroplets containing millions of atoms or more that can be ionized…
We present a combined ion imaging and density functional theory study of the dynamics of the desorption process of rubidium and cesium atoms off the surface of helium nanodroplets upon excitation of the perturbed $6s$ and $7s$ states,…