Journal
PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY CHEMICAL PHYSICS
Volume 17, Issue 10, Pages 6858-6864Publisher
ROYAL SOC CHEMISTRY
DOI: 10.1039/c4cp05618c
Keywords
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Funding
- Fonds der Chemischen Industrie
- Volkswagenstiftung
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft DFG [AB63/12-1, AB 63/9-1, PO 1015/2-1]
- Fondecyt [11121179]
- Grant ICM [120082]
- DFG [SFB 755]
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Charge separation in condensed matter after strong impacts is a general and intriguing phenomenon in nature, which is often identified and described but not necessarily well understood in terms of a quantitative mechanistic picture. Here we show that charge separation naturally occurs if water droplets/clusters or ice particles with embedded charge carriers, e.g., ions, encounter a high energy impact with subsequent dispersion - even if the involved kinetic energy is significantly below the molecular ionization energy. We find that for low charge carrier concentrations (c < 0.01 mol L-1) a simple statistical Poisson model describes the charge distribution in the resulting molecular fragments or aggregates. At higher concentrations Coulomb interactions between the charge carriers become relevant, which we describe by a Monte Carlo approach. Our models are compared to experimental data for strong (laser) impacts on liquid micro beams and discussed for the charge generation in cluster-impact mass spectrometry on cosmic dust detectors where particle kinetic energies are below the plasma threshold. Taken together, a simple and intuitive but quantitative microscopic model is obtained, which may contribute to the understanding of a larger range of phenomena related to charge generation and separation in nature.
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