Molecular Multiphoton Ionization and Ion Fragmentation Spectroscopy

Multiphoton ionization (MPI) has emerged as one of the most powerful methods for molecular detection. MPI spectroscopy is now being used extensively in fundamental research and for a variety of molecular detection applications that demand exceptional sensitivity. From the onset of studies, it was clear that techniques such as resonance enhanced 2-photon ionization had the potential to detect single molecules of many polyatomic species. Further work revealed that MPI could be a very selective detection technique by virtue of the specific optical, mass, and fragmentation properties that can be used to uniquely detect and identify molecules.