Photodissociation Dynamics Of CH₃ Radical And High Resolution Spectroscopic Study Of The S-R(0,0) Band In O₂

Photodissociation dynamics of the CH₃ radical at 212.5 nm excitation hasbeen studied experimentally using the H atom Rydberg tagging time-of-flightmethod. Photodissociation of CH₃I at 266nm was used to generate pure CH3radical. Product translational energy distribution and angular anisotropydistribution for the CH₂ product from CH3 photodissociation at differentvibrational levels via the 3s Rydberg state have been measured. From thesedistributions, product J state distributions are obtained for decomposition ofdifferent vibrationally excited CH₃ radicals. Effect of parent vibrational as wellas rotational excitation on the dissociation dynamics of CH₃ is also investigated indetail.During the auther's Ph.D. procedure, another important experiment workhas been done: high resolution spectroscopic study of the Schumann-Runge(0,0)band in O2. With the use of a novel Titanium:sapphire laser source delivering,upon fourth harmonic generation, narrowband and tunable radiation in thedeep-UV, spectroscopic, dissociation and collisional studies were performed onthe weak Schumann-Runge (0,0) band of oxygen. From a combination ofLaser-Induced Fluorescence and Cavity Ring-Down spectroscopy observations,accurate information on collisional effects and fine-structure dependentpredissociation was obtained for the excited B(v = 0) state.