A pulsed mixing valve for generating reactive complexes in a supersonic expansion

A pulsed source for producing clusters of reactive species in a supersonic expansion has been successfully implemented. The design utilizes two commercial pulsed valves to mix cluster components directly in the expansion, forming cold complexes and minimizing or eliminating the complications due to prereaction of the sample. The duty cycle of the source is well matched to pulsed laser probe techniques and minimizes gas loading on the vacuum system. The source has been tested with an unreactive system and also employed to produce strongly interacting aliphatic-I-2 species. (C) 2001 American Institute of Physics.