Photodissociation Of Alkyl Iodides Research Articles

Ultraviolet photodissociation of C2F5I with a small and simple photofragment translational spectrometer

Photodissociation dynamics of C(2)F(5)I near 280 and 304 nm has been investigated on a small and simple time-of-flight photofragment translational spectrometer (PTS). On this new PTS, the photolyzed and ionized fragments, not accelerated by electric field, travel freely for a short flight path (<50 mm) and are detected by microchannel plates. In the spectra of the I(*)((2)P(1/2)) channel at 281.73 and 304.02 nm, vibrational peaks with spacing of approximately 350 cm(-1) are partially resolved, indicating the preferential excitation of CF(2) wag mode (nu(11)=366 cm(-1)) of C(2)F(5) photofragment. The fraction of the available energy disposed into the internal energy is higher than 50% for both I(*) channel and I channel, showing the high excitation of vibration in the C(2)F(5) fragments. The fragment recoil anisotropy parameter beta(I(*)), determined to be 1.70 at 281.73 nm and 1.64 at 304.02 nm, reveals that I(*) atoms are produced predominantly from the parallel (3)Q(0) <-- N transition. The anisotropy parameter beta(I), determined to be 1.25 at 279.71 nm and 0.88 at 304.67 nm, implies that I atoms are produced from two excited states, i.e., direct dissociation via the perpendicular (3)Q(1) <-- N transition, and indirect dissociation via the parallel (3)Q(0) <-- N transition then curve crossing to the (1)Q(1) potential energy surface. Analysis on the recent studies with vibrational state resolution in the photodissociation of alkyl iodides in the A band reveals that the "symmetric bending" mode on alpha-carbon of alkyl iodides is the preferential vibrational excitation mode, which can be explained by the classic impulsive model.

Photodissociation of alkyl iodides in solution: Substituent effects on the early-time dynamics

Resonance Raman spectra, including absolute scattering cross sections, have been measured for ethyl, isopropyl, and tert-butyl iodides in cyclohexane solution at seven to ten wavelengths between 303 and 200 nm. Spectra of fully deuterated ethyl iodide have also been obtained at five wavelengths. Spectra excited in the 300–250 nm region, on resonance with the directly dissociative A state, are dominated by long overtone progressions in the nominal C–I stretching mode near 500 cm−1. In all three molecules the fundamental of the C–I stretch is unexpectedly weak relative to the overtones when excited near the peak of the A band. This is shown to arise from interference between the A-state resonant part of the fundamental Raman amplitude and preresonant contributions from higher electronic states. In addition to the C–I stretching activity, A-state excitation generates significant intensity in fundamentals, overtones, and combination bands of modes nominally assigned as bending and CC stretching vibrations, suggesting a multidimensional character to the reaction coordinate. The absorption spectra and A-state resonant Raman intensities are modeled successfully through wave-packet propagation on a multidimensional locally harmonic potential with a preresonant contribution to the fundamental intensities included. The short-time photodissociation dynamics are then examined by using the normal-mode coefficients to convert the wave-packet motion from dimensionless normal coordinates into internal coordinates. It is found that while the dominant motion during the first 10 fs involves stretching of the C–I bond, other stretching and bending motions are also involved, although the precision of these conclusions for isopropyl and tert-butyl iodides is limited by the indeterminacy in the signs of the normal-mode displacements obtained from the intensity analysis. Comparison of the results for normal and perdeuterated ethyl iodide is used to resolve most of the sign indeterminacies for this molecule. The present results are compared and contrasted to conclusions of previous studies of energy partitioning in the vapor-phase photodissociation.