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A new desk-top, 26.5 eV/photon (46.9 nm), soft x-ray
(extreme ultraviolet, EUV) laser has been employed to study gas phase
cluster chemistry in our group. The soft x-ray laser not only ionizes all
the neutral clusters, but it is a very gentle ionization source that does
not extensively fragment metal oxide clusters (e.g. VmOn,
NbmOn, and TamOn clusters), hydrogen
bonded clusters (H2O)n, (CH3OH)n,
(NH3)n, (HCOOH)n, and van der Waals clusters
(SO2)n, and (CO2)n. In studies
of these weakly bound and metal oxide clusters, neutral cluster
distributions obtained by 26.5 eV soft x-ray ionization are nearly the same
as those distributions obtained with near threshold ionization by a 118 nm
laser, except for a few oxygen rich clusters that cannot be ionized by the
118 nm light. The 26.5 eV, soft x-ray laser is an ideal light source with
which we can detect all neutral cluster species and their reaction products.
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