Published September 2, 1988
| public
Journal Article
Femtosecond Clocking of the Chemical Bond
Abstract
When a chemical bond is broken in a direct dissociation reaction, the process is so rapid that it has generally been considered instantaneous and thus unmeasurable. However, the bond does persist for times on the order of 10^(-13) seconds after the photon has been absorbed. Femtosecond (10^(-15) second) laser techniques can be used to directly clock this process, which describes the dynamics of the chemical bond. The time required to break the chemical bond in an elementary reaction has been measured and the characteristic repulsion length for the potential governing fragment separation has been obtained.
Additional Information
© 1998 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 6 June 1988; accepted 6 July 1988. We thank R. Zare, R. Dixon, J. Simons, and K. Wilson for very enlightening discussions. Supported by the AFOSR grant 87-0071. A.H.Z. is a John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 53118
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20141222-152314297
- 87-0071
- Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
- John Simon Guggenheim Foundation
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2014-12-23Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field