Coulomb Crystals: A Cool Way to Do Chemistry

Coulomb Crystals, formed from laser cooling of atomic ions, have become a selective way of measuring spectroscopic transitions, kinetics and dynamics of cold ion-molecule reactions. For accurate measurements, reactants and detection methods must be state-selective. This fairly new technique has the potential to provide insight into state-to-state ion-molecule reaction dynamics provided advances in product detection are made. A background of this new cold regime technique as well as its use in reaction rate studies will be presented.