Suppressing the fragmentation of fragile molecules in helium nanodroplets by coembedding with water: possible role of the electric dipole moment.

When fragile molecules such as glycine, polyglycine, alkanes, and alkanethiols are embedded in liquid helium nanodroplets, electron-impact ionization of the beam leads to fragmentation which is as extensive as that of isolated gas-phase molecules. However, it turns out that if a few molecules of water are coembedded with the peptide and alkane chains, their fragmentation is drastically reduced or completely eliminated. On the other hand, the fragmentation of alkanethiols remains unaffected. On the basis of these observations, it is proposed that the fragmentation "buffering" effect may correlate with the magnitude of the impurity's electric dipole moment, which steers the migration of the ionizing He(+) hole in the droplet.