The photochemistry and photophysics of diacetylene and cyanoacetylene: Applications to the atmosphere of Titan

The work presented in this thesis demonstrates the power of several spectroscopic techniques used to investigate the photochemistry and photophysics of diacetylene and cyanoacetylene. This is accomplished by taking the reader through a series of experiments that are used to create and spectroscopically identify the photoproducts from the reactions of diacetylene and cyanoacetylene. The relative reaction rates of a number of small hydrocarbons with diacetylene has also been measured and will be useful to current atmospheric models of Titan. The photoelectron spectra of diacetylene has been obtained across the UV region of the 1Δ_u ← X 1Σ_g+ vibronic transition. A discussion of tunable IR OPO/OPA parametric converters is also included.