Gas-phase molecular spectroscopy in the past five decades: bearings of the advancements in light source technologies

Abstract

A brief overview of the advancements in vibrational and electronic spectroscopy studies of cold molecules and clusters owing to merger of supersonic jet expansion technique with tunable lasers, which happened nearly three decades ago, is presented. Combination of the two techniques helped preparation of molecules in well defined quantum states, and thus allowed investigations of the ensuing dynamics of the prepared states through reactive and non-reactive channels. The accumulated literature in these fields of science, since lasers became easily available as light sources, is huge. Therefore, only selected studies, solely according to personal preferences of the authors, are presented.