Proposed experimental probes of chemical reaction molecular dynamics in solution: ICN photodissociation

Abstract

Knowledge of how translational and rotational motions are influenced by the solvent during the course of a photodissociation ‘‘half-collision’’ reaction in solution is of interest in itself and can also help our understanding of how thermally activated reactions take place in solution by means of fluctuations in translational and rotational motion. With this goal, the molecular dynamics of the photodissociation of the triatomic molecule ICN are compared in the gas phase and in Xe solution. The time evolution of the trajectories (particularly with respect to interfragment distance and CN orientation) and of the energy partitioning (particularly into fragment translational recoil and into rotation of the CN) are displayed. Two types of solution experiments are proposed and simulated, both closely related to recent gas phase studies by Dantus, Rosker, and Zewail. These experiments are designed to probe the detailed dynamics of chemical reactions in solution during the time period the reaction is in progress, in particular to reveal the dramatic effects of the solvent on translational motions and energies. Both are pump–probe experiments in which the first photon dissociates the ICN and the second induces fluorescence in the CN fragment. In the first type of experiment, which is particularly sensitive to fragment translational motion, the fluorescence intensity is measured as a function of photon energy and of time delay. In the second type of experiment, which is particularly sensitive to fragment rotation, in addition the angle between the polarizations of the pump and probe photons is varied. In the calculations presented here, the effect of the absorption of the photodissociation photon is treated using the classical Frank–Condon principle. The coupling between the assumed two upper electronic surfaces is taken into account semiclassically using a generalization to the condensed phase of the classical electron model of Miller and Meyer, which was applied to ICN photodissociation in the gas phase by Goldfield, Houston, and Ezra.