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Previous experimental work has shown that a phase transition in C60 multifragmentation induced by nanosecond laser occurs at almost constant temperature covering a wide range of laser fluency. Here the relative yields of ionic fragments (IFs) Cn+ (n = 1-20) resulting from the multifragmentation are measured within the phase transition region. By excluding two small IFs and magic IFs due to their abnormal behavior, the data for residual IFs are used to estimate the size distributions of primary intermediate-mass IFs in the multifragmentation regime. The distributions are found to obey power laws n- T . Furthermore, the exponent T values have sensitive dependence on lower laser fluency and converge to a constant of about 2.4 ± 0.2 for larger fluencies. These observations are in good agreement with an explanation based on the Fisher droplet model, offering the tantalizing possibility of a liquid-to-gas phase transition in C60 systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose an approach to determine the excitation energy distribution due to multiphoton absorption in the case of excited systems following decays to produce different ion species. This approach is based on the measurement of the time-resolved photoion position spectrum by using velocity map imaging spectrometry and an unfocused laser beam with a low fluence and homogeneous profile. Such a measurement allows us to identify the species and the origin of each ion detected and to depict the energy distribution using a pure Poisson’s equation involving only one variable which is proportional to the absolute photon absorption cross section. A cascade decay model is used to build direct connections between the energy distribution and the probability to detect each ionic species. Comparison between experiments and simulations permits the energy distribution and accordingly the absolute photon absorption cross section to be determined. This approach is illustrated using C60 as an example. It may therefore be extended to a wide variety of molecules and clusters having decay mechanisms similar to those of fullerene molecules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We revisit the laser-intensity-dependent ionization and fragmentation yields of C60 molecules irradiated by 25-fs, 798-nm laser pulses based on the approach in which photoions are measured via a velocity map imaging spectrometer working in a time-sliced mode. This approach dramatically improves the signal-to-background ratio compared to those using a simple (traditional) time-of-flight mode (spectrometer), and thus allows us to measure the laser-intensity dependences down to a previously untouched region, which is expected to provide new insights into the intense-field ionization and fragmentation of C60. Indeed, we find that the saturation intensities for C60 ionizations and the onset intensity for C60 fragmentation are much lower than those reported in previous experiments. Furthermore, the derived saturation-intensity dependence on charge distribution demonstrates the validity of the over-the-barrier ionization using a conducting sphere model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meso-tetraphenyl iron (III) porphyrin chloride dications (FeTPPCl2+)* were prepared in collisions with F+ and H+ at 3 keV. The dominant fragmentation channels were observed to involve the loss of the Cl atom and the successive loss of neutral phenyl groups for both collisional systems. The mass spectra in correlation with the deposited excitation energy distributions of the parent ions for the main fragmentation channels were measured by using the collision induced dissociation under energy control method. The global excitation energy distribution was found to be shifted to lower energies in collisions with H+ compared to collisions with F+ showing a noteworthy change of the excitation energy window using different projectile ions. Partial excitation energy distributions of the parent ions FeTPPCl2+ were obtained for each fragmentation group. In a theoretical work, we have calculated the dissociation energies for the loss of one and two phenyl groups, including phenyl and (phenyl ± H). The energy barrier for the hydrogen atom transfer during the loss of (phenyl-H) has been also calculated. The measured energy difference for the successive loss of two phenyl groups was compared with the theoretical values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]