Rempi Studies of Molecular Reaction Dynamics.

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. Requires signed TDF. Resonance-Enhanced Multi-Photon Ionisation (REMPI qv.) is used to prepare and probe systems undergoing unimolecular decomposition. It is shown that the highly efficient state selective nature of the REMPI process is well suited to both highly dynamical situations such as the "A-Band" dissociation of MeI at around 280nm and to the slower "Quasi-statistical" dissociations of the mainifold of states of the MeI(+) cation. In the study of the neutral dissociation we attempt to extract the population distributions of the quantum states "by implication" as has been done previously. We demonstrate the failings of the time-of-flight technique in being unable to do this effectively. A comparison with previous studies is made. We report the first rotationally resolved spectrum of a polyatomic (N atoms > 2) photofragment (Me from the "A-Band" photodissociation of MeI) and propose a mechanism to account for the observed differences of the rotational populations in the different dissociation channels. Two-photon linestrength theory incorporating alignment effects is extended to symmetric tops to analyse the data. The pre-dissociation dynamics of a high lying Rydberg state of the methyl radical have been extracted as part of a spectroscopic study performed on CH _3 and CD_3. The dynamics are compared to existing studies on the near-neighbours NH_3 and ND_3 with some apparent correlation. In the dissociations of the A and B states of the MeI(+) cation we are able to provide some more evidence for existing ideas that the A state dissociates by rapid inter-conversion to highly excited levels of the ground state whereas the B state dissociates in a more direct manner. We identify two existing features in the REMPI spectrum of MeI in the "A-Band" region as molecular Rydberg resonances and show that an interesting competition exists between the direct photodissociation and the "virtual" state involved in further up-pumping to the Rydberg state.