Matrix halogen-doped

The third member, trimethylenemethane (3), had some relevance to our studies on carbenes, since besides methylene and its simply substituted derivatives trimethylenemethane 3 is one of the few molecules having a triplet ground state.22 Also the experience with 3 could be of help in order to deal with the singlet/triplet differentiation in matrix-isolated carbenes. We learned that, if the calculated IR spectra of the singlet and triplet molecule are sufficiently different, it might be possible to determine the multiplicity of the matrix-isolated species by comparison with the experimental IR spectrum. In this context it is also worth mentioning that we were able to measure the matrix IR spectrum of 3, but a special technique (irradiation in halogen-doped xenon matrices) had to be developed in order to achieve a concentration of 3 sufficient for its IR detection.23... 

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