The structure and dissociation dynamics of the Ne2Cl2 van der Waals complex

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The structure and dynamics of Ne2Cl2 and Ne3Cl2 are studied by laser pump–probe spectroscopy. Analysis of a rotationally resolved B←X excitation band shows that Ne2Cl2 has a distorted tetrahedral structure with a Ne–Ne bond length of 3.23 Å and Ne2 center of mass to Cl2 center of mass distance of 3.12 Å. This structure is very close to that predicted by summing the atom–atom interactions. Excitation spectral shifts suggest a Ne3Cl2 structure with the neon atoms encircling the Cl2 bond axis. The total van der Waals binding energy of Ne2Cl2 is found to be between 145.6 and 148.6 cm−1, which is 20 cm−1 greater than 2*D0(Ne–Cl2)+D0(Ne2). For Cl2 stretching levels below υ’=10, transfer of one Cl2 vibrational quantum to the van der Waals vibrational modes is sufficient to dissociate both neon atoms from the complex. This indicates that the two neon atoms need not dissociate via independent, impulsive ‘‘half‐collisions’’ which would require two Cl2 vibrational quanta. Observation of a NeCl2 dissociation fragment, however, indicates that such a sequential mechanism competes with the direct dissociation. Cl2 fragment rotational state population distributions for different initial vibrational levels are characterized using a simple rotational surprisal analysis. Comparison of these surprisal plots to those of the NeCl2 dissociation shows that as the size of the complex increases, so does the degree of statistical redistribution during the reaction. Even for Ne2Cl2, however, the extent of product rotational excitation is only weakly dependent upon the amount of energy available to the products and is always less than predicted by a statistical distribution between the translational and rotational product degrees of freedom.