Photoinduced products from cold coronene clusters : A route to hydrocarbonated nanograins?

Free cold pure coronene clusters have been formed in a gas aggregation source and irradiated with excimer laser pulses. Analysis of the photoproducts thanks to a reflectron time-of-flight mass spectrometer showed that new ionic compounds are formed. These species may include Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) larger than coronene, PAH-coronene clusters, as well as coronene clusters branched with unsaturated aliphatic chains. The relevance of these results in the context of interstellar medium chemistry, and in particular the carriers of the so-called aromatic infrared emission bands (AIBs), is discussed.