Data for: Controlling the Internal Excitation of H₃⁺ Produced in a Duoplasmatron Ion Source

We found that using collisional relaxation alone, we could vary 𝘛ᵢₙₜ over the range ≈ 1300 − 2400 K. Combining collisional relaxation and chemical destruction, we reduced the minimum to 𝘛ᵢₙₜ ≈ 1130 K. Over this temperature range, the fraction of H₃⁺ where all vibrational modes are in their 𝘷 = 0 level varies from ≈ 0.88 at the lowest temperature to ≈ 0.44 at the highest temperature. This combination of cooling methods offers a potentially powerful means for studying reactive scattering processes as a function of the internal excitation of the H₃⁺.

Keywords: molecular beam sources and techniques, techniques for molecular physics, atomic and molecular collision processes and interactions, H₃⁺, internal excitation, collisional relaxation, chemical destruction