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Abstract
Velocity map imaging is a vital tool in the study of the photodissociation dynamics of cold gas phase molecules. Imaging studies have been carried out over a wide variety of neutral systems, however its application to the study of ions has been limited to cases where photoionization is efficient. A recently constructed velocity map imaging apparatus has been used to study the photodissociation of mass-selected ions in which efficient cluster sources are implemented. This instrument offers new insights into the photodissociation dynamics of ions, as well as their binding energies, which are difficult to obtain experimentally and very few have been well defined. Upper limits on the dissociation energies for a variety of Ag+−π complexes and Zn+(CH3OH) have been determined along with their angular distributions. The use of velocity map imaging in the qualitative study of the photodissociation dynamics of carbon cluster cations has also been demonstrated.