Ion-atom-atom three-body recombination in cold hydrogen and deuterium plasmas

Atom and ion chemistry in low pressure hydrogen dc plasmas.

The chemical composition of a low-pressure hydrogen dc plasma produced in a hollow cathode discharge has been measured and modeled. The concentrations of H atoms and of H(+), H(2)(+) and H(3)(+) ions were determined with a combination of optical spectroscopic and mass spectrometric techniques, over the range of pressures (p approximately 0.008-0.2 m bar) investigated. The results were rationali...

Two-Body and Three-Body Dynamics in Atom-Ion Experiments

During the last few decades, the two fields of ultracold neutral atoms and of single trapped ions have undergone an amazing development. The incorporation of both these systems into a single experiment exploits the complementary physical properties of the subsystems and opens up novel lines of research. In this thesis, I present experimental results obtained in one of the first hybrid atom-ion ...

Ion-Atom Cold Collisions and Atomic Clocks

Atom-molecule laser fed by stimulated three-body recombination.

Using three-body recombination as the underlying process, we propose a method of coherently driving an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) into a molecular BEC. Superradiantlike stimulation favors atom-to-molecule transitions when two atomic BECs collide at a resonant kinetic energy, the result being two molecular BEC clouds moving with well-defined velocities. Potential applications include ...

Atom/ion movement controlled three-terminal atomic switch, ‘Atom Transistor’

Atomic switch is a nanoionic-device that controls the diffusion of metal ions/atoms and their reduction/oxidation processes in the switching operation to form/annihilate a conductive path [1-3]. Since metal atoms can provide a highly conductive channel even if their cluster size is in the nanometer scale, atomic switches may enable downscaling to smaller than the 11 nm technology node, which is...