Preparation of Less Volatile Solute Molecules and Clusters in the Gas Phase through Selective Vibrational Excitation of Solvent in Liquid Beam of Solution

Solute resorcinol molecules were isolated from a liquid beam of an aqueous resorcinol solution by employing selective vibrational excitation of solvent molecules in the solution under irradiation of an infrared (IR) laser. Resorcinol molecules and their clusters with solvent water molecules isolated in the gas phase were ionized by multiphoton excitation under irradiation of an ultraviolet (UV) laser, and ions thus produced were detected by mass spectrometry. The dependence of the ion intensities on the delay time from the IR to the UV excitation indicates that the neutral species are isolated in the gas phase through two different processes; one has a short characteristic time and the other a long characteristic time.