Deceleration and cooling of large molecules using time-varying electric fields

在这个项目中，我们建议开发在气相中超低温下冷却和储存大分子和生物分子的技术，以实现此类系统的精确光谱分析。分子的冷却将通过在稀有气体中接种的分子的超声共膨胀和使用时变电场的分子的连续减速来进行，利用它们的斯塔克效应。分子将被减慢到允许它们存储在静电阱或环中的速度。在非常低的温度下储存大分子和生物分子将允许对此类系统的物理和化学性质进行超高分辨率研究。我们建议采用，开发，或扩展所需的技术，将这些大分子转移到气相中，减速，存储，并使用苯甲腈（BN）作为测试用例检测它们。BN具有与小生物分子如DNA碱基、氨基酸和小二肽和寡肽相当的分子量，因此将是此类系统的极好模型。此外，作为一个相对对称的不对称顶部，BN是一个有趣的分子，在紫外，红外和微波频率范围内的超高分辨率光谱。

In this project we propose to develop the techniques to cool and store large molecules and biomolecules at ultra-low temperatures in the gas-phase to allow for precision spectroscopy of such systems. The cooling of the molecules will be performed by supersonic co-expansion of the molecules seeded in rare-gases and successive slowing of the molecules using time-varying electric fields, exploiting their Stark effects. The molecules will be slowed down to velocities that allow their storage in electrostatic traps or rings. The storage of large molecules and biomolecules at very low temperatures will allow for ultra-high resolution studies of the physical and chemical properties of such systems. We propose to employ, develop, or extend the techniques needed to transfer such large molecules into the gas-phase, decelerate, store, and detect them using benzonitrile (BN) as a test-case. BN has a molecular mass comparable to small biomolecules such as DNA-bases, amino acids, and small di- and oligo-peptides, and thus will be an excellent model for such systems. Moreover, being a relatively symmetric asymmetric top, BN is an interesting molecule for ultra-high resolution spectroscopy in the UV-, IR-, and MW-frequency range.