In this project in the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Neumark will study the photodissociation spectroscopy of free radicals, coordinatively unsaturated organometallic radicals, and neutral cluster species in order to obtain information on bond energies and on the photodissociation dynamics. For each system the dissociative electronic states will be mapped out by measuring the photodissociation cross section as a function of frequency. This will be followed by photodissociation dynamics experiments in which the photofragment energy and angular distributions are measured and the bond dissociation energies are determined. %%% Free radicals play a vital role in chemistry as primary reactants and reactive intermediates. These experiments will look at the different spectroscopy and dynamics between molecules with open shell electronic structures and those with closed shells. Such information bears directly on the chemical reactivity of free radicals.
