Research

Currently, there are three main directions to investigate the ions of interest:

Spectroscopy. The very low temperature (<1K) and the non-reacting nature of the HNDs make them an ideal matrix for ion spectroscopy since it is both transparent for infrared (IR) and visible (VIS) light and it facilitates the formation of He-tagged ion complexes, enabling high-resolution photo fragmentation spectroscopy, wherefore He-tagged ions are irradiated by the tunable laser and the photo-fragmentation is detected with mass spectrometry. 

Collision-induced dissociation. In this method, dopant ions of selected mass are exposed to the collisions with the buffer gas, such as Ar or He, at the well-controlled energy. The collisions lead to the fragmentation of the dopant and the fragments are detected with mass spectrometry. It not only allows getting structural information of the desired ions but also studying how tightly complex is bound.

Deposition and macroscopic studies. The HNDs ensure the soft landing of the dopants, typically metal clusters, to the substrate and the high control level helps to minimize the size dispersion. In this way, the surfaces can be created with the nearly uniform size of the deposited clusters. The formed surfaces are then studied by STM, AFM and other techniques.