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Ce travail concerne les mécanismes de formation, de destruction et de relaxation interne des ions moléculaires formes au cours de collisions inélastiques ultra-froides. Ces collisions sont étudiées expérimentalement dans des pièges hybrides mêlant un piège d'atomes ultra-froids et un piège d’ions refroidis par laser. Nous avons effectué une analyse théorique systématique des collisions binaires, assistées par la lumière, impliquant plusieurs sortes de paires atome/ion. Leur interaction mutuelle est décrite par des calculs de chimie quantique basés sur l'utilisation de potentiels de cœur effectifs très précis. La formation d’ions moléculaires par 'association radiative est prédite efficace pour tous les systèmes étudiés, avec une section efficace deux à dix fois plus grande que le processus concurrent, le transfert de charge radiatif. Les constantes de vitesse partielles et totales sont aussi calculées et comparées aux valeurs expérimentales disponibles. Des résonances de forme sont attendues avec une largeur très faible, et pourraient être observées avec la meilleure résolution expérimentale atteinte aujourd'hui. Les distributions vibrationnelles ont aussi été calculées. Elles montrent que les ions moléculaires formés ne sont pas créés dans leur état vibrationnel fondamental. Nous avons ensuite montré que ces ions moléculaires pouvaient être photodissociés par les lasers utilisés dans l’expérience pour le refroidissement et le piégeage. Par ailleurs nous avons étudié la relaxation vibrationnelle des ions formés. Dans les échelles de temps des différentes expériences, nous avons montré que celle-ci ne résulte pas d'une relaxation radiative associée au moment dipolaire permanent de l'ion, mais plutôt à des collisions avec les atomes ultra-froids environnants. Nous avons ainsi étudié cette relaxation interne pour les ions H₂⁺ (resp. Rb₂⁺) lors d'une collision avec des atomes ultra-froids de He (resp. Rb). Ces deux cas sont importants pour des expériences en cours. Nous avons décrit le calcul du potentiel d'interaction nécessaire pour l'obtention de la matrice de couplage qui intervient dans la résolution deséquations couplées multi-voies. En particulier il a été montré, dans le cas He-H₂⁺, que les interactions spin-rotation, du fait de la structure doublet de l'ion, n'ont qu'une faible influence sur la somme des sections efficaces d'état à état (avec ou sans effet vibrationnel). Ces calculs peuvent être donc simplifiés en traitant l'ion à un électron actif comme étant dans un état de spin nul. Dans le cas Rb-Rb₂⁺, l'étude de la relaxation vibrationnelle de l'ion Rb₂⁺ suite à des collisions froides avec des atomes de Rb se heurte à des difficultés supplémentaires: (i) l'échange des atomes identiques conduisant à des collisions réactives qui induisent des pertes dans le piège. (ii) la forte densité d'états internes due à la lourde masse du système. (iii) les interactions inter-voies encore présentes à très longues distances du fait cette forte densité. Néanmoins, nos calculs montrent que la forte anisotropie observée dans les surfaces d'énergie potentielle conduit à la relaxation efficace de l'ion Rb₂⁺ par collision avec des atomes de Rb. Cette tendance pourrait être très générale pour les ions moléculaires triatomiques présentant une forte anisotropie à courte distances et qui sont couramment utilisés dans les pièges hybrides. / The work sheds light on the mechanisms, and their efficiency, for (i) formation, (ii) destruction and (iii) internal cooling of cold molecular ions by inelastic ultracold collisions, such as those studied in hybrid setups merging an ultracold atom trap and a laser-cooled ion trap. We have carried out a systematic and consistent analysis of light assisted binary collisions of many relevant atom/ion pairs using accurate effective core potential based quantum chemistry calculations. Radiative association is predicted to occur for all systems with a cross section two to ten times larger than the competitive channel of radiative charge transfer. Partial and total rate constants are also calculated and compared to available experiments. Narrow shape resonances are expected, which could be detectable at low temperature with an experimental resolution at the limit of the present standards. Vibrational distributions are also calculated, showing that the final molecular ions are not created in their internal ground state level. Once light-assisted formation of molecular ions is probed, we have checked their effective radiative lifetime due to the presence of several lasers in the experiments, which turns out to efficiently photodissociate the created ions. Moreover, besides an extremely slow internal relaxation due to the presence of a permanent electric dipole moment, at reasonably time scales, we have found evidences for the population of molecular levels being strongly influenced by collisions with surrounding ultracold atoms. We have further investigated the internal cooling of both H₂⁺ and Rb₂⁺ (with the respective isotopologues) in collisions with ultracold He and Rb atoms, respectively, due to their relevance for experimental implementations. We have described the calculation of the interaction potentials needed to obtain the coupling potential matrix elements used in a multichannel close coupling formalism. In particular, it is shown that the sum of the He-H₂⁺ state-to-state cross sections (with and without vibrational effects) accounting for the coupling between electronic spin and molecular rotation is dynamically equivalent to directly treating the collision problem of a molecular ion as a structureless spherical rotor interacting with the He atom. The additional difficulties of a close-coupling treatment for an effective internal cooling of sympathetically cold Rb₂⁺ ions in collisions with Rb atoms are discussed along the following lines: (i) the homonuclear nature of the problem, inducing trap losses from reactive collisions; (ii) the higher density of internal states due to the heaviness of the system; and, (iii) its long-range neutral-charged interaction. Nevertheless, strong evidence of an efficient internal cooling by inelastic collisions with Rb atoms is found, and may indicate a general trend for all similar heavy species currently found in hybrid trap experiments.

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This thesis reports on the setup of a new ion trap apparatus designed for experiments with single ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ions to perform molecular spectroscopy. The calcium ion is laser cooled, allowing for sympathetic cooling of the nonfluorescing molecular ion. The aim of these experiments is to explore loading and identifying molecular ions in RF-Paul traps, as well as developing new spectroscopic tools to measure transitions of molecular ions via the fluorescence of co-trapped ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ions. Ground state cooling of a mixed ion pair is implemented as a first step towards increasing the sensitivity of our technique to the level necessary to measure transitions with low scattering rates (like those present in molecular ions). Doppler cooling on the S(1/2)->P(1/2) transition of the calcium ion results in the formation of a Coulomb crystal, the behavior of which may be used to infer properties of the molecular ion. Following cooling, sideband spectroscopy on the narrow S(1/2)->D(5/2) quadrupole transition of calcium may be used to identify the mass of single molecular ions. This method is verified via a non-destructive measurement on ⁴⁰CaH⁺ and ⁴⁰Ca¹⁶O⁺. The normal modes of the Coulomb crystal can also be used to extract information from the target ion to the control ion. By driving the blue side of a transition, laser induced heating can be put into the two ion system, which leads to changes in fluorescence of the ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ion, first demonstrated with two Ca⁺ isotopes. Increasing the sensitivity of this technique requires ground state cooling of both the ⁴⁰Ca⁺ ion and the ion of interest, enabling the transfer of the ion's motional state into the ground state with high probability. This thesis demonstrates ground state cooling of the atomic ion and sympathetic cooling of a second ion (⁴⁴Ca⁺). Once in the ground state, heating of the Coulomb crystal by scattering photons off of the spectroscopy ion can be measured by monitoring the resolved motional sidebands of the S(1/2)->D(5/2) transition of ⁴⁰Ca⁺, allowing for spectral lines to be inferred. Future experiments will investigate this technique with molecular ions.

Methods of temperature measurement by mass spectrometry have been critically reviewed. It was concluded that the most appropriate method depended critically on the availability of fundamental data, hence a database of fundamental spectroscopic constants, for diatomic ions which cause interferences in ICP-MS, was compiled. The equilibration temperature, calculated using the different methods and using various diatomic ions as the thermometric probes, was between c.a. 400 - 10,000 K in the central channel, and between c.a. 600 - 16,000 K when the plasma was moved 1.8 mm off-centre. The wide range in temperature reflected the range of temperature measurement methods and uncertainty in the fundamental data. Optical studies using a fibre optic connected to a monochromator were performed in order to investigate the presence of interferences both in the plasma and the interface region of the ICP-MS, and the influence of a shielded torch on these interferences. It was possible to determine the presence of some species in the plasma, such as the strongly bound metal oxides, however, no species other than OH were detected in the interface region of the ICP-MS. The OH rotational temperature within the interface region of the ICP-MS was calculated to be between 2,000 - 4,000 K. The effect of sampling depth, operating power, radial position and solvent loading, with and without the shielded torch, on the dissociation temperature of a variety of polyatomic interferences was investigated. These calculated temperatures were then used to elucidate the site of formation for different polyatomic interferences. Results confirmed that strongly bound ions such as MO+ were formed in the plasma, whereas weakly bound ions such as ArO+ were formed in the interface region due to gross deviation of the calculated temperatures from those expected for a system in thermal equilibrium.