Reactions putting laser energy into

Usually we talk about reactions in solution, but recently techniques have been developed to follow reactions that occur in a vacuum when a stream of reactant A and a stream of reactant B cross each other in a defined direction, as with molecular beams. From the direction in which the products are ejected and their energies, much fundamental information can be deduced about the details of the molecular processes. Lasers, which emit light-energy in a highly focused beam, are sometimes used to put energy into one of the reactants in a defined way. Such a technique reveals less about the nature of the transition state than about what is called the dynamics of the process—how molecules collide so as to react, and how the products carry away the energy of the overall reaction. The development and application of such techniques were recognized by a Nobel Prize in 1986 to Dudley Herschbach, Yuan Lee, and John Polanyi. 

Various reactions in which the reactants are in particular vibrational and rotational states have been investigated and state-to-state kinetics have been studied. Two procedures have been used in these investigations. Brooks and coworkers first employed the molecular beam method for studying the state-to-state kinetics. The reactants molecules are put into desired vibrational and rotational states by laser excitation and identified the states by their fluorescence. In molecular beam experiments, it is possible to control the translational energy and mutual orientation of the reactants and to determine the degree of polarization of the rotational angular momentum of the product. 

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