Effective doping of low energy ions into superfluid helium droplets

Abstract

We report a facile method of doping cations from an electrospray ionization (ESI) source into superfluid helium droplets. By decelerating and stopping the ion pulse of reserpine and substance P from an ESI source in the path of the droplet beam, about 104 ion-doped droplets (one ion per droplet) can be recorded, corresponding to a pickup efficiency of nearly 1 out of 1000 ions. We attribute the success of this simple approach to the long residence time of the cations in the droplet beam. The resulting size of the doped droplets, on the order of 105/droplet, is measured using deflection and retardation methods. Our method does not require an ion trap in the doping region, which significantly simplifies the experimental setup and procedure for future spectroscopic and diffraction studies.