ATOMIC PHOTOFRAGMENT V-J CORRELATION - DISSOCIATION OF CL-2 AT 355NM

The photodissociation of Cl2 at 355 nm was studied by measuring the angular distribution of the chlorine fragments in their electronic ground state (2P3/2). Resonance-enhanced multiphoton ionization and time-of-flight (TOF) techniques were combined to obtain state-selective photofragment TOF profiles. It was observed that the shape of these photofragment TOF profiles depends sensitively on the polarizations of both the photolysis and the probe lasers. The dependence on the photolysis laser polarization reveals the angular distribution of the photofragments whereas the dependence on the probe laser polarization can be understood in terms of the atomic photofragment v-j correlation. Since the ground state Cl fragment has an electronic angular momentum greater than 1/2, it can be aligned along the direction of fragment recoil. A theoretical treatment based on the adiabatic approximation is presented here to explain the observed polarization dependence of the photofragment TOF profiles. © 1995 American Institute of Physics.