Abstract
In the article we shall discuss a new type of photochemistry which involves infrared photons instead of visible or UV photons, and which occurs by vibrational excitation rather than electronic transitions. It has been firmly established during the past few years that polyatomic molecules can absorb sufficient energy from an infrared laser pulse that a true unimolecular reaction takes place without benefit of collisions. This may be a dissociation reaction or an isomerization in which the molecular structure is rearranged. Because a chemical activation energy is 3 eV and the infrared photon for the CO2 laser wavelength is about 0.1 eV, the molecule is absorbing 30 or more photons.
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Yablonovitch, E. (1980). Infrared Laser Chemistry. In: Kubo, R., Hanamura, E. (eds) Relaxation of Elementary Excitations. Springer Series in Solid-State Sciences, vol 18. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81482-2_13
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81482-2_13
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