IRMPD technique multiple-photon dissociation

Vibrational spectroscopy is an important probe used to determine the bonding and structural properties of molecules. Powerful techniques such as electron energy loss spectroscopy (EELS) have been developed, which allow one to obtain the vibrational properties of molecules chemisorbed upon surfaces. Due to low concentration, the highly reactive nature of the clusters, and the large number of possible species which are typically present in the cluster beams used to date, unconventional techniques are required in order to obtain spectroscopic information. One unconventional but powerful technique, infrared multiple photon dissociation (IRMPD), has recently been applied to the study of the vibrational properties of gas-phase metal clusters upon which one or more molecules have been chemisorbed. This same technique, IRMPD, has previously been used to obtain the vibrational spectra of ions, species for which it is difficult to apply conventional absorption techniques. 

As mentioned earlier, CPMD simulations were carried out at 300K on deprotonated phosphorylated serine (p-ser-H) , and the resultant extracted spectrum correlates with the experimental IR spectrum obtained by the recently-developed InfraRed Multiple Photon Dissociation (IRMPD) technique, which was first described in this chapter in Volume 39. 

Activation of the vibrational energy of ions can also be induced by the absorption of IR radiations. A popular type of IR radiation source is far-IR laser. In fact, many molecules have a broad IR absorption band. The most widely used IR source is a continuous wave (c.w.) CO2 laser, with the wavelength of 10.6 pm. This wavelength corresponds to an energy of 0.3 eV per laser photon. Because decomposition of a chemical bond requires >1 eV, laser excitation has to extended over hundreds of milliseconds to allow ions to absorb multiple IR photons. This method is known as infrared multiphoton dissociation (IRMPD). Another type of similar technique is black-body infrared radiative dissociation... 

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