Laser selective chemistry—is it possible?
- 1 November 1980
- journal article
- Published by AIP Publishing in Physics Today
- Vol. 33 (11) , 27-33
- https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2913821
Abstract
One of the main goals of chemists is to understand the “alchemy” that leads to the building and breaking of molecules. There are many different ways of approaching this goal. One of these is photochemistry, the cracking of molecules by adding energy in the form of light to break bonds in the molecules. The resulting bond breakage is in most cases limited by statistical thermodynamic laws. With sufficiently brief and intense laser radiation properly tuned to specific resonances, we hope to bypass the statistical laws and break molecules precisely where we want to break them. Intellectually this is a challenging problem; if we succeed, laser selective chemistry may also have application in various areas of pure and applied chemistry and, perhaps, in medicine.This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Optical molecular dephasing: principles of and probings by coherent laser spectroscopyAccounts of Chemical Research, 1980
- Molecular Vibration and the Normal Mode ApproximationJournal of Chemical Education, 1980
- Intramolecular rate processes in highly vibrationally excited benzeneThe Journal of Chemical Physics, 1979
- A nonstatistical unimolecular chemical reaction: isomerization of state-selected allyl isocyanideChemical Physics Letters, 1979
- High-energy vibrational overtones of polyatomic molecules in solids: inequivalent local C–H modes and subpicosecond dephasing of naphthalene at 1.3 KChemical Physics Letters, 1979
- Do highly excited reactive polyatomic molecules behave ergodically?Accounts of Chemical Research, 1979
- Resonance structure and background absorption in high-overtone molecular spectraChemical Physics Letters, 1979
- Use of local modes in the description of highly vibrationally excited moleculesAccounts of Chemical Research, 1977
- Molecular optical spectroscopy with supersonic beams and jetsAccounts of Chemical Research, 1977
- Isotopically selective photochemistry in molecular crystalsJournal of the American Chemical Society, 1975