Determination of binding energy in molecular clusters by ion imaging methods: A test on the phenol-water 1:1 cluster

In this paper we present a test on the velocity mapping imaging approach for the experimental direct determination of the binding energy in clusters formed by strongly interacting polyatomic molecules. The method is applied to the phenol-water cluster, a system for which the binding energies were already determined in different experiments. The binding energy values that we obtained, 1975 cm−1 in the S0 state, 2327 cm−1 in the S1 state and 6586 cm−1 in the ionic D0 state, are in very good agreement with the previous determinations. We report our results and we discuss advantages and limitations resulting from our experience.