skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Studies of transition states and radicals by negative ion photodetachment

Miscellaneous ·
OSTI ID:5718877

Negative ion photodetachment is a versatile tool for the production and study of transient neutral species such as reaction intermediates and free radicals. Photodetachment of the stable XHY[sup [minus]] anion provides a direct spectroscopic probe of the transition state region of the potential energy surface for the neutral hydrogen transfer reaction X + HY [yields] XH + Y, where X and Y are halogen atoms. The technique is especially sensitive to resonances, which occur at a specific energy, but the spectra also show features due to direct scattering. The authors have used colinear adiabatic simulations of the photoelectron spectra to evaluate trial potential energy surfaces for the bimolecular reactions and have extended the adiabatic approach to three dimensions and used it to evaluate empirical potential energy surfaces for the I + HI and Br + HI reactions. In addition, the authors have derived an empirical, collinear potential energy surface for the Br + HBr reaction that reproduces experimental results and have extended this surface to three dimensions. Photodetachment of a negative ion can also be used to study neutral free radicals. The authors have studied the vibrational and electronic spectroscopy of CH[sub 2]NO[sub 2] by photoelectron spectroscopy of CH[sub 2]NO[sub 2][sup [minus]], determining the electron affinity of CH[sub 2]NO[sub 2], gaining insight on the bonding of the [sup 2]B[sub 1] ground state and observing the [sup 2]A[sub 2] excited state for the first time. Negative ion photodetachment also provides a novel and versatile source of mass-selected, jet-cooled free radicals. The authors have studied the photodissociation of CH[sub 2]NO[sub 2] at 270, 235, and 208 nm, obtaining information on the dissociation products by measuring the kinetic energy release in the photodissociation.

Research Organization:
California Univ., Berkeley, CA (United States)
OSTI ID:
5718877
Resource Relation:
Other Information: Thesis (Ph.D.)
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English