Specialist Physics Seminar Thursday 22 May 2003 at 14.00

Electronic polarizability and dipole measurements of gas phase systems: clusters and biomolecules

Isabelle Compagnon

Laboratoire de Spectrometrie Ionique et Moleculaire CNRS et Universite Lyon I, Villeurbanne, France


Electric deflection of a molecular beam is used to measure the electronic polarizability and the permanent electric dipole of neutral molecules in the gas phase. This tool allows to probe the electronic and the geometric structure of the ground state of the particle.

The technique will be discussed and the first results about biomolecules (aminoacids and polypeptides) will be presented.