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We have produced a Bose-Einstein condensate of metastable helium (4He*) containing over 1.5x10^7 atoms, which is a factor of 25 higher than previously achieved. The improved starting conditions for evaporative cooling are obtained by…
Electric deflection measurements on liquid helium nanodroplets doped with individual polar molecules demonstrate that the cold superfluid matrix enables full orientation of the molecular dipole along the external field. This translates into…
We report on the electrostatic complexation between polyelectrolyte-neutral copolymers and oppositely charged 6 nm-crystalline nanoparticles. For two different dispersions of oxide nanoparticles, the electrostatic complexation gives rise to…
Helium nanodroplets, commonly regarded as the "nearly ideal spectroscopic matrix", are being actively studied for more than two decades now. While they mostly serve as cold, weakly perturbing and transparent medium for high-resolution…
This much revised and shortened PhD thesis contains many ideas that I could not follow up on, like self destructing beams in scattering cells, the depletion enhancing Wittig tube, ionic seeding via beta-decay foil or Langmuir-Taylor…
Studying the freezing of saltwater on a molecular level is of fundamental importance for improving freeze desalination techniques. Here, we investigate the freezing process of NaCl solutions using a combination of x-ray diffraction and…
The $1s^2->1s2p(^1P)$ excitation in confined and compressed helium atoms in either the bulk material or encapsulated in a bubble is shifted to energies higher than that in the free atom. For bulk helium, the energy shifts predicted from…
A sample mixture of alkali homonuclear dimers, Ak$_2$ and Ak$^{\prime}_2$ and heteronuclear dimers, AkAk$^{\prime}$, residing on the surface of helium nanodroplets are Coulomb exploded into pairs of atomic alkali cations,…
Alkali trimers, Ak$_3$, located on the surface of He nanodroplets are triply ionized following multiphoton absorption from an intense femtosecond laser pulse leading to fragmentation into three correlated Ak$^+$ ions. Combining the…
The structural evolution of suspensions upon freezing is studied with optical microscopy in a suspended droplet configuration. Droplets have millimeter size and consist in an aqueous mixture of silica particles while the surroundings phase…
The synthesis of Ag nanoclusters in sodalime silicate glasses and silica was studied by optical absorption (OA) and electron spin resonance (ESR) experiments under both low (gamma-ray) and high (MeV ion) deposited energy density irradiation…
Magnesium atoms embedded in superfluid helium nanodroplets have been identified to arrange themselves in a metastable network, refered to as foam. In order to investigate the ionization dynamics of this unique structure with respect to a…
We have explored the light induced dynamics in superfluid helium nanodroplets with wide-angle scattering in a pump-probe measurement scheme. The droplets are doped with xenon atoms to facilitate the ignition of a nanoplasma through…
We study superfluid helium droplets multiply charged with ions. When stable, the charges are found to reside in equilibrium close to the droplet surface, thus representing a physical realization of Thomson's model. We find the minimum…
Iodine (I$_2$) molecules embedded in He nanodroplets are aligned by a 160 ps long laser pulse. The highest degree of alignment, occurring at the peak of the pulse and quantified by $\langle \cos^2 \theta_{2D} \rangle$, is measured as a…
Rotationally resolved infrared spectra are reported for halogen atom - HF free radical complexes formed in helium nanodroplets. An effusive pyrolysis source is used to dope helium droplets with Cl, Br and I atoms, formed by thermal…
Energy absorption of xenon clusters embedded in helium nanodroplets from strong femtosecond laser pulses is studied theoretically. Compared to pure clusters we find earlier and more efficient energy absorption in agreement with experiments.…
The distinctions in the mass spectra of large sodium (Na_N) and aluminum (Al_N) clusters are discussed. A semiclassical method is used to describe the shell effects within a spherical jellium model. It allows one to analyze the relative…
3He nanobubbles created by radioactive decay of tritium in palladium tritide are investigated after several years of aging. Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy Electron Energy-Loss Spectroscopy (STEM-EELS) has been used to measure…
We present single-shot electron velocity-map images of nanoplasmas generated from doped helium nanodroplets and neon clusters by intense near-infrared and mid-infrared laser pulses. We report a large variety of signal types, most crucially…