Femtosecond laser ionization of CdTe clusters

Femtosecond laser spectroscopy was employed to study photoionization and photofragmentation processes of neutral CdTe clusters produced in a laser vaporization source. With time-of-flight mass spectrometry we studied cluster size distributions and identified Ten clusters (n⩽30) as well as CdxTey hetero-clusters. A strong signal at 4275 amu observed only with fs-laser ionization is tentatively assigned to a Cd5Te29 cluster. First results are reported on the ultrafast dynamics of CdTe-cluster photoionization using pump–probe spectroscopy.