PRODUCTION OF A PURE, SINGLE RO-VIBRATIONAL QUANTUM-STATE MOLECULAR-BEAM

Electrostatic hexapole focusing is used to produce a beam of ND3 molec ules in a pure, single \JKMepsilon >\ +/- > = \1111 >\ - > rotational- vibrational quantum state in the electronic ground state, X 1A1'. Both photodissociation at 193.3 nm and (2 + 1) REMPI are used to detect th e state-selected ND3 molecules. Calculated focusing curves are shown t o be in good agreement with the experimental curves for initial beam t emperatures less than 6 K and spectral simulations confirm the single state nature of the molecular beam by comparisons to the measured popu lation and alignment (A0[2] = 0.5 +/- 0.1) of the focused \1111 >\ - > state.