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D3+ formation through photoionization of the molecular D2–D2 dimer

Nature Chemistry volume 15, pages 1224–1228 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The H2–H2 molecular dimer is of fundamental importance in the study of chemical interactions because of its unique bonding properties and its ability to model more complex systems. The trihydrogen cation H3+ is also a key intermediate in a range of chemical processes in interstellar environments, such as the formation of various organic molecules and early stars. However, the unexpected high abundance of H3+ in molecular clouds remains challenging to explain. Here using near-infrared, femtosecond laser pulses and coincidence momentum imaging, we find that the dominant channel after photoionization of a deuterium molecular dimer (D2–D2) is the ejection of a deuterium atom within a few hundred femtoseconds, leading to the formation of D3+. The formation mechanism is supported and well-reproduced by ab initio molecular dynamics simulations. This pathway of D3+ formation from ultracold D2–D2 gas may provide insights into the high abundance of H3+ in the interstellar medium.

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Fig. 1: PES and trajectory simulations.
Fig. 2: Sketch of the experimental set-up and TOF spectra.
Fig. 3: Measured PIPICO spectrum.
Fig. 4: Experimental results of the time-dependent yields for different channels.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study and the raw data for all the figures have been uploaded to Figshare36 at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21509769. Source data are provided with this paper.

Code availability

The code for the ab initio molecular dynamics simulation is available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank A. R. W. McKellar, A. Stolow, P. Bunker and T. Pfeifer for fruitful discussions. We acknowledge support from the Joint Centre for Extreme Photonics. Y.M. acknowledges support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) grant no. MI 2434/1-1 (Y.M.). E.W. is supported by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, grant no. XDB34020000 (E.W.), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Financial support from the National Science and Engineering Research Council Discovery (grant no. RGPIN-2020-05858, A.S.) and from the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research (grant no. FA9550-16-1-0109, P.C.) is gratefully acknowledged.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Attosecond Science Laboratory, National Research Council and University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

    Yonghao Mi, Zack Dube, Tian Wang, A. Y. Naumov, D. M. Villeneuve, P. B. Corkum & André Staudte

  2. Hefei National Research Center for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and Department of Modern Physics, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Enliang Wang

  3. Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany

    Enliang Wang

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  1. Yonghao Mi
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Contributions

Y.M. designed and conducted the experiments. E.W. performed molecular dynamics simulations. Z.D., A.Y.N. and A.S. assisted with the experiments. Y.M. and A.S. analysed the experimental data. Y.M., E.W. and A.S. wrote the manuscript with contributions from all other authors.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Yonghao Mi, Enliang Wang or André Staudte.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Chemistry thanks Marcos Dantus and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Comparisons of the simulated center of mass distance as a function of time for the H2 and D2 dimer.

(a), (b), and (c) correspond to the T-shape geometry, parallel geometry and X-shape geometry of the H2 (red curves) and D2 (blue curves) dimers, respectively. The results show that all initial configurations lead to the formation of H3+ or D3+. The molecule begins to dissociate once the trajectory shows a linear increase of the center of mass distance as a function of time. These results indicate that the H2 dimer dissociates faster than the D2 dimer.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 2 Simulated trajectories of H3+ formation as a function of time.

The simulated center of mass distance of H3+ + H is shown for 493 trajectories, out of a total of 593 simulated trajectories for H2–H2. The branching ratio for this channel is 83.1%, which is very close to that of the D3+ + D channel (89.2%).

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 3 Simulated time-dependent H3+ yield.

The simulated data is obtained by projecting the trajectories with a center-of-mass distance larger than 4.2 Å onto the time axis, which excludes most of the oscillation structures. The red curve represents a fit to the data using the growth function Y(t) = a(1-e−t/τ) + Y0, where a and Y0 represent the amplitude and the offset of the H3+ yield, respectively, and τ is the formation time of H3+. By using this fit function, we find the formation time of H3+ is 169. 5 fs.

Source data

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Figs. 1–6, discussion and Table 1.

Supplementary Video 1

The formation process of D3+ for a parallel-aligned D2 dimer.

Supplementary Video 2

The formation process of D3+ for a T-shape D2 dimer.

Supplementary Video 3

The formation process of D3+ for an X-shape D2 dimer.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

Calculated PES and the one-dimensional and two-dimensional trajectory simulations for D2 dimers.

Source Data Fig. 2

Statistical source data of the time-of-flight spectrum.

Source Data Fig. 3

Statistical source data of the photoion-photoion coincidence spectrum.

Source Data Fig. 4

Statistical source data of the yields of different pathways.

Source Data Extended Data Fig./Table 1

Calculated trajectory simulation (one-dimensional) for H2 and D2 dimers.

Source Data Extended Data Fig./Table 2

Calculated two-dimensional trajectory simulation for H2 dimers.

Source Data Extended Data Fig./Table 3

Simulated time-dependent H3+ yield.

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Mi, Y., Wang, E., Dube, Z. et al. D3+ formation through photoionization of the molecular D2–D2 dimer. Nat. Chem. 15, 1224–1228 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-023-01231-z

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