Fluorescence imaging of individual ions and molecules in pressurized noble gases for barium tagging in 136Xe

Abstract

The imaging of individual Ba²⁺ ions in high pressure xenon gas is one possible way to attain background-free sensitivity to neutrinoless double beta decay and hence establish the Majorana nature of the neutrino. In this paper we demonstrate selective single Ba²⁺ ion imaging inside a high-pressure xenon gas environment. Ba²⁺ ions chelated with molecular chemosensors are resolved at the gas-solid interface using a diffraction-limited imaging system with scan area of 1 × 1 cm² located inside 10 bar of xenon gas. This form of microscopy represents key ingredient in the development of barium tagging for neutrinoless double beta decay searches in ¹³⁶Xe. This also provides a new tool for studying the photophysics of fluorescent molecules and chemosensors at the solid-gas interface to enable bottom-up design of catalysts and sensors.