Photoionization of potassium clusters: Neutral and ionic cluster stabilities

Abstract

Neutral potassium clusters of two different mass distributions generated either by a sonic or a conical nozzle were photoionized at several ionizing energies. By combining different nucleation conditions with several photoionization situations, variations of ion mass spectral patterns reflecting either neutral or ionic stabilities were obtained. The spectra show peaks or steps for those neutral and ionized clusters which contain 8, 20, and 40 electrons. These can be understood in terms of electronic shell structure for both neutral and ionized potassium clusters. However local irregularities appearing for the small cluster sizes reveal the influence of their geometrical structure. Moreover ionizing laser power dependencies taken at various photon energies were used to study fragmentation effects following ionization.