Speaker
Description
Olga A. Duda 1,2, Gerrit Groenenboom2, Daniel A. Horke2, and Joost M. Bakker1,2
1HFML-FELIX, Toernooiveld 7, 6525 ED, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
2Radboud University, Institute for Molecules and Materials, Heyendaalseweg 135, 6525 AJ Nijmegen
The ability of molecules to absorb individual quanta of vibrational energy is the cornerstone of infrared spectroscopy. However, once deposited in a molecule, the absorbed energy can either stay in the excited degree of freedom (the bright state) or it will be dissipated by the system until it is released through such processes as fragmentation or photon emission.
Using a combination of resonance-enhanced multi-photon ionisation (REMPI) spectroscopy and the broadly tuneable infrared free electron laser FELIX, we probe the fate of energy deposited in molecules through resonant infrared excitation. We show how IR excitation evolves from no dissipation in the four-atomic ammonia to complex vibrational populations in phenol and its halogenated derivatives, depending on the excited coordinate. We finally discuss how a competing process of isomerization in conformational isomers could experimentally be probed.
