Abstract
The photofragmentation dynamics of Fe(CO)5 in a supersonic molecular beam have been studied for photolysis wavelengths of 193, 248, 266, and 351 nm. The CO photofragments formed under these collision‐free conditions were detected by vacuum ultraviolet laser‐induced fluorescence (VUV LIF). This allowed for the determination of the rotational and vibrational distributions for the CO products and, by using Doppler spectroscopy, the translational energy distributions were also determined. These data are presented along with the details of a statistical model calculation which reproduces the experimental data very precisely. The statistical model for the photodissociation dynamics, which works at all photolysis wavelengths studied, is based on sequential elimination of CO ligands, with complete energy randomization in the intermediate ground state Fe(CO)n fragments between elimination steps. The detailed mechanism for the ultraviolet photochemistry of Fe(CO)5 is discussed in light of these results and previous...
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