Design and characterization of a magnetic bottle electron spectrometer for time-resolved extreme UV and X-ray photoemission spectroscopy of liquid microjets.

We describe a magnetic bottle time-of-flight electron spectrometer designed for time-resolved photoemission spectroscopy of a liquid microjet using extreme UV and X-ray radiation. The spectrometer can be easily reconfigured depending on experimental requirements and the energy range of interest. To improve the energy resolution at high electron kinetic energy, a retarding potential can be applied either via a stack of electrodes or retarding mesh grids, and a flight-tube extension can be attached to increase the flight time. A gated electron detector was developed to reject intense parasitic signal from light scattered off the surface of the cylindrically shaped liquid microjet. This detector features a two-stage multiplication with a microchannel plate plus a fast-response scintillator followed by an image-intensified photon detector. The performance of the spectrometer was tested at SPring-8 and SACLA, and time-resolved photoelectron spectra were measured for an ultrafast charge transfer to solvent reaction in an aqueous NaI solution with a 200 nm UV pump pulses from a table-top ultrafast laser and the 5.5 keV hard X-ray probe pulses from SACLA.

Differentiation of microbial species and strains in coculture biofilms by multivariate analysis of laser desorption postionization mass spectra.

7.87 to 10.5 eV vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) photon energies were used in laser desorption postionization mass spectrometry (LDPI-MS) to analyze biofilms comprised of binary cultures of interacting microorganisms. The effect of photon energy was examined using both tunable synchrotron and laser sources of VUV radiation. Principal components analysis (PCA) was applied to the MS data to differentiate species in Escherichia coli-Saccharomyces cerevisiae coculture biofilms. PCA of LDPI-MS also differentiated individual E. coli strains in a biofilm comprised of two interacting gene deletion strains, even though these strains differed from the wild type K-12 strain by no more than four gene deletions each out of approximately 2000 genes. PCA treatment of 7.87 eV LDPI-MS data separated the E. coli strains into three distinct groups, two "pure" groups, and a mixed region. Furthermore, the "pure" regions of the E. coli cocultures showed greater variance by PCA at 7.87 eV photon energies compared to 10.5 eV radiation. This is consistent with the expectation that the 7.87 eV photoionization selects a subset of low ionization energy analytes while 10.5 eV is more inclusive, detecting a wider range of analytes. These two VUV photon energies therefore give different spreads via PCA and their respective use in LDPI-MS constitute an additional experimental parameter to differentiate strains and species.

Synchrotron-based mass spectrometry to investigate the molecular properties of mineral-organic associations.

Soil organic matter (SOM) is important because its decay drives life processes in the biosphere. Analysis of organic compounds in geological systems is difficult because of their intimate association with mineral surfaces. To date there is no procedure capable of quantitatively separating organic from mineral phases without creating artifacts or mass loss. Therefore, analytical techniques that can (a) generate information about both organic and mineral phases simultaneously and (b) allow the examination of predetermined high-interest regions of the sample as opposed to conventional bulk analytical techniques are valuable. Laser desorption synchrotron postionization (synchrotron-LDPI) mass spectrometry is introduced as a novel analytical tool to characterize the molecular properties of organic compounds in mineral-organic samples from terrestrial systems, and it is demonstrated that, when combined with secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), it can provide complementary information on mineral composition. Mass spectrometry along a decomposition gradient in density fractions verifies the consistency of our results with bulk analytical techniques. We further demonstrate that, by changing laser and photoionization energies, variations in molecular stability of organic compounds associated with mineral surfaces can be determined. The combination of synchrotron-LDPI and SIMS shows that the energetic conditions involved in desorption and ionization of organic matter may be a greater determinant of mass spectral signatures than the inherent molecular structure of the organic compounds investigated. The latter has implications for molecular models of natural organic matter that are based on mass spectrometric information.

He I ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy of benzene and pyridine in supersonic molecular beams using photoelectron imaging.

We performed He I ultraviolet photoelectron spectroscopy (UPS) of jet-cooled aromatic molecules using a newly developed photoelectron imaging (PEI) spectrometer. The PEI spectrometer can measure photoelectron spectra and photoelectron angular distributions at a considerably higher efficiency than a conventional spectrometer that uses a hemispherical energy analyzer. One technical problem with PEI is its relatively high susceptibility to background electrons generated by scattered He I radiation. To reduce this problem, we designed a new electrostatic lens that intercepts background photoelectrons emitted from the repeller plate toward the imaging detector. An energy resolution (ΔE/E) of 0.735% at E = 5.461 eV is demonstrated with He I radiation. The energy resolution is limited by the size of the ionization region. Trajectory calculations indicate that the system is capable of achieving an energy resolution of 0.04% with a laser if the imaging resolution is not limited. Experimental results are presented for jet-cooled benzene and pyridine, and they are compared with results in the literature.

Internal energy of HCl upon photolysis of 2-chloropropene at 193 nm investigated with time-resolved Fourier-transform spectroscopy and quasiclassical trajectories.

Following photodissociation of 2-chloropropene (H(2)CCClCH(3)) at 193 nm, vibration-rotationally resolved emission spectra of HCl (upsilon < or = 6) in the spectral region of 1900-2900 cm(-1) were recorded with a step-scan time-resolved Fourier-transform spectrometer. All vibrational levels show a small low-J component corresponding to approximately 400 K and a major high-J component corresponding to 7100-18,700 K with average rotational energy of 39+/-(3)(11) kJ mol(-1). The vibrational population of HCl is inverted at upsilon = 2, and the average vibrational energy is 86+/-5 kJ mol(-1). Two possible channels of molecular elimination producing HCl + propyne or HCl + allene cannot be distinguished positively based on the observed internal energy distribution of HCl. The observed rotational distributions fit qualitatively with the distributions of both channels obtained with quasiclassical trajectories (QCTs), but the QCT calculations predict negligible populations for states at small J. The observed vibrational distribution agrees satisfactorily with the total QCT distribution obtained as a weighted sum of contributions from both four-center elimination channels. Internal energy distributions of HCl from 2-chloropropene and vinyl chloride are compared.

Photodissociation dynamics of phenol.

The photodissociation of phenol at 193 and 248 nm was studied using multimass ion-imaging techniques and step-scan time-resolved Fourier-transform spectroscopy. The major dissociation channels at 193 nm include cleavage of the OH bond, elimination of CO, and elimination of H(2)O. Only the former two channels are observed at 248 nm. The translational energy distribution shows that H-atom elimination occurs in both the electronically excited and ground states, but elimination of CO or H(2)O occurs in the electronic ground state. Rotationally resolved emission spectra of CO (1

Molecular elimination in photolysis of o- and p-fluorotoluene at 193 nm: Internal energy of HF determined with time-resolved Fourier transform spectroscopy.

Following the photodissociation of o-fluorotoluene [o-C(6)H(4)(CH(3))F] at 193 nm, rotationally resolved emission spectra of HF(1< or =v< or =4) in the spectral region of 2800-4000 cm(-1) are detected with a step-scan Fourier transform spectrometer. HF(v< or =4) shows nearly Boltzmann-type rotational distributions corresponding to a temperature approximately 1080 K; a short extrapolation from data in the period of 0.5-4.5 mus leads to a nascent rotational temperature of 1130+/-100 K with an average rotational energy of 9+/-2 kJ mol(-1). The observed vibrational distribution of (v=1):(v=2):(v=3)=67.6: 23.2: 9.2 corresponds to a vibrational temperature of 5330+/-270 K. An average vibrational energy of 25+/-(3) (12) kJ mol(-1) is derived based on the observed population of HF(1< or =v< or =3) and estimates of the population of HF (v=0 and 4) by extrapolation. Experiments performed on p-fluorotoluene [p-C(6)H(4)(CH(3))F] yielded similar results with an average rotational energy of 9+/-2 kJ mol(-1) and vibrational energy of 26+/-(3) (12) kJ mol(-1) for HF. The observed distributions of internal energy of HF in both cases are consistent with that expected for four-center elimination. A modified impulse model taking into account geometries and displacement vectors of transition states during bond breaking predicts satisfactorily the rotational excitation of HF. An observed vibrational energy of HF produced from fluorotoluene slightly smaller than that from fluorobenzene might indicate the involvement of seven-membered-ring isomers upon photolysis.