We describe a setup to study ultrafast dynamics in gas-phase molecules using time-resolved photoelectron and photoion spectroscopy. The vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) probe pulses are generated via strong field high-order harmonic generation from infrared
femtosecond laser pulses. The band pass characteristic in transmission of thin indium (In) metal foil is exploited to isolate the $9^{text{th}}$ harmonic of the 800 nm fundamental (H9, 14 eV, 89 nm) from all other high harmonics. The $9^{text{th}}$ harmonic is obtained with high conversion efficiencies and has sufficient photon energy to access the complete set of valence electron levels in most molecules. The setup also allows for direct comparison of VUV single-photon probe with 800 nm multi-photon probe without influencing the delay of excitation and probe pulse or the beam geometry. We use a magnetic bottle spectrometer with high collection efficiency for electrons, serving at the same time as a time of flight spectrometer for ions. Characterization measurements on Xe reveal the spectral width of H9 to be $190pm60$ meV and a photon flux of $sim1cdot10^{7}$ photons/pulse after spectral filtering. As a first application, we investigate the S$_1$ excitation of perylene using time-resolved ion spectra obtained with multi-photon probing and time-resolved electron spectra from VUV single-photon probing. The time resolution extracted from cross-correlation measurements is $65pm10$ fs for both probing schemes and the pulse duration of H9 is found to be $35pm8$ fs.
We demonstrate feedback cooling of the motion of a single rubidium atom trapped in a high-finesse optical resonator to a temperature of about 160 mu K. Time-dependent transmission and intensity-correlation measurements prove the reduction of the atom
ic position uncertainty. The feedback increases the 1/e storage time into the one second regime, 30 times longer than without feedback. Feedback cooling therefore rivals state-of-the-art laser cooling, but with the advantages that it requires less optical access and exhibits less optical pumping.
