A search for the sulphur hexafluoride cation with intense, few cycle laser pulses.

It is well established that upon ionization of sulphur hexafluoride, the SF6(+) ion is never observed in mass spectra. Recent work with ultrashort intense laser pulses has offered indications that when strong optical field are used, the resulting "bond hardening" can induce changes in the potential energy surfaces of molecular cations such that molecular ions that are normally unstable may, indeed, become metastable enough to enable their detection by mass spectrometry. Do intense, ultrashort laser pulses permit formation of SF6(+)? We have utilized intense pulses of 5 fs, 11 fs, and 22 fs to explore this possibility.