Abstract

Molecular ions have posed a formidable challenge to spectroscopists due to the difficulty in generating sufficient concentrations of ions to produce a detectable signal. The high chemical reactivity of molecular ions and the mutual Coulomb repulsion of like charges result in small densities of ions, whose signal can be masked by larger densities of neutrals. For a long time spectroscopic information was limited to observations in optical emission. In the last two decades, spectroscopists have developed new techniques to study molecular ions^1,2.

© 1996 Optical Society of America