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
9th harmonic of the 800 nm fundamental (H9, 14 eV, 89 nm) from all
other high harmonics. The 9th 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
190±60 meV and a photon flux of ∼1⋅107 photons/pulse after
spectral filtering. As a first application, we investigate the S1 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 65±10 fs for
both probing schemes and the pulse duration of H9 is found to be 35±8 fs