Download or read book The Photodissociation and Reaction Dynamics of Vibrationally Excited Molecules. Technical Progress Report written by and published by . This book was released on 1995 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The goal of this Department of Energy sponsored research is to discover the properties, behavior, and dissociation dynamics of vibrationally energized molecules, which are crucial participants in many chemical reactions. The authors study vibrationally energized molecules by using an optical excitation scheme to prepare them and a subsequent photon to dissociate them into fragments that they detect with a spectroscopic probe. This technique, vibrationally mediated photodissociation, provides new information on vibrationally energized molecules and even provides a means of controlling the course of a molecular decomposition. During the most recent period of Department of Energy support, the authors have advanced this work in three directions: they have used vibrational overtone excitation to control the decomposition pathways in the tetra-atomic molecule isocyanic acid (HNCO) and unravelled the decomposition pathways in hydroxylamine (NH2OH), they have implemented stimulated Raman excitation as the vibrational state preparation technique in vibrationally mediated photodissociation, and they have tested the limits of transient grating spectroscopy as a means of obtaining electronic spectra of vibrationally excited molecules.