This three-year award supports U.S.-France cooperative research in experimental physical chemistry involving William Breckenridge and graduate students at the University of Utah and Benoit Soep and Christophe Jouvet at the University of Paris, Orsay. The investigators propose to develop new techniques for probing the reaction dynamics of half collisions of electronically excited metal atoms. Dr. Breckenridge brings to this collaboration his expertise in spectroscopy and chemical dynamics. His laboratory has developed the ability to synthesize complexes involving metal atoms with pure hydrogen. This is complemented by the French investigators' expertise and capabilities for conducting experiments involving a pico-second laser system. These experiments will provide information about physical and chemical processes that occur on the surfaces of metal atoms. By extending their work to the pico- second region, the investigators will be able to characterize some of the slower dynamical processes which occur during atom/atom collisions.
