Vibrational levels, Franck-Condon factor

The acetylene A <- X electronic transition is a bent <- linear transition that would be electronically forbidden ( - ) at the linear structure. The usual approximation is to ignore the possibility that the electronic part of the transition moment depends on nuclear configuration and to calculate the relative strengths of vibrational bands as the square of the vibrational overlap between the initial and final vibrational states (Franck-Condon factor). A slightly more accurate picture would be to express the electronic transition moment as a linear function of Q l (the fra/w-bending normal coordinate on the linear X1 state) in such a treatment, the transition moment would be zero at the linear structure and the vibrational overlap factors would be replaced by matrix elements of Qfl- Nevertheless, as long as one makes use of low vibrational levels of the A state, neglect of the nuclear coordinate dependence of the electronic excitation function is unlikely to affect the predicted dynamics or to complicate any proposed control scheme. 

Figure Al.6.13. (a) Potential energy curves for two electronic states. The vibrational wavefunctions of the excited electronic state and for the lowest level of the ground electronic state are shown superimposed, (b) Stick spectrum representing the Franck-Condon factors (the square of overlap integral) between the vibrational wavefiinction of the ground electronic state and the vibrational wavefiinctions of the excited electronic state (adapted from [3]).

The observation of a bend progression is particularly significant. In photoelectron spectroscopy, just as in electronic absorption or emission spectroscopy, the extent of vibrational progressions is governed by Franck-Condon factors between the initial and final states, i.e. the transition between the anion vibrational level u" and neutral level u is given by... 

Here, I(co) is the Fourier transform of the above C(t) and AEq f is the adiabatic electronic energy difference (i.e., the energy difference between the v = 0 level in the final electronic state and the v = 0 level in the initial electronic state) for the electronic transition of interest. The above C(t) clearly contains Franck-Condon factors as well as time dependence exp(icOfvjvt + iAEi ft/h) that produces 5-function spikes at each electronic-vibrational transition frequency and rotational time dependence contained in the time correlation function quantity <5ir Eg ii,f(Re) Eg ii,f(Re,t)... 

The ZEKE-PE process shown in Figure 9.50(c) can be modified as shown by changing the wavenumber Vj of the first laser to excite the molecule to an excited vibrational level of M. Then the Franck-Condon factors for the band system are modified. This can allow... 

Due to strong interaction of the reactants with the medium, the influence of the latter may not be reduced only to the widening of the vibrational levels of the proton in the molecules AH and BH. The theory takes into account the Franck-Condon factor determined by the reorganization of the medium during the course of the reaction. 

Figure 5.3 The effect of energy gap in vibrational levels on Si VW> S0 internal conversion. Decreasing the vibrational energy gap leads to a radiationless transition in which the T overlap and Franck-Condon factor are reduced and the rate of internal conversion should be decreased...

For some aromatic hydrocarbons such as naphthalene, anthracene and pery-lene, the absorption and fluorescence spectra exhibit vibrational bands. The energy spacing between the vibrational levels and the Franck-Condon factors (see Chapter 2) that determine the relative intensities of the vibronic bands are similar in So and Si so that the emission spectrum often appears to be symmetrical to the absorption spectrum ( mirror image rule), as illustrated in Figure B3.1. 

Another consequence of the stronger interactions upon ionization is that the equilibrium geometry of the ionized complex may differ signihcantly from that of the neutral states. Broadened ionization onsets are frequently attributed to the spectral superposition of ionization into several vibrational levels for which Franck-Condon factors are more favorable. As a result, the adiabatic ionization potential may be considerably lower than the vertical potential, and the observed ionization onsets may occur above the adiabatic potential. Another factor to be considered is the conformation-dependent efifect, due to the different conformations of the solvent molecules. The most populated form of a complex may involve a less stable form of the solvent. After photoionisation, the lowest-energy dissociation channel in the complex ion leads to the most stable form of isolated solvent, which has to be taken into account for the estimate of the binding energy. 

The probability of a particular vertical transition from the neutral to a certain vibrational level of the ion is expressed by its Franck-Condon factor. The distribution of Franck-Condon factors, /pc, describes the distribution of vibrational states for an excited ion. [33] The larger ri compared to ro, the more probable will be the generation of ions excited even well above dissociation energy. Photoelectron spectroscopy allows for both the determination of adiabatic ionization energies and of Franck-Condon factors (Chap. 2.10.1). 

The high laser intensity enables molecular transitions to be measured even when their Franck-Condon factors are small, so that the fluorescence progression can be followed up to high vibrational levels, thus considerably increasing the accuracy of the molecular constant determination. It furthermore permits fluorescence measurements at low pressures. 

If the equilibrium position of the excited state C is located outside the configurational coordinate curve of the ground state, the excited state intersects the ground state in relaxing from B to C, leading to a nonradiative process. As described above, the shape of an optical absorption or emission spectrum is decided by the Franck-Condon factor and also by the electronic population in the vibrational levels at thermal equilibrium. For the special case where both ground and excited states have the same angular frequency, the absorption probability can by calculated with harmonic oscillator wavefunctions in a relatively simple form ... 

Whenever an electronic transition causes a large change in the geometry (bond lengths or angles) of the molecule, the Franck-Condon factors tend to display the characteristic "broad progression" shown below when considered for one initial-state vibrational level vi and various final-state vibrational levels vf ... 

If we use an ns probe pulse, we can tune its wavelength resonant to one particular vibronic transition. In this case, the LIF signal reflects the population of a single vibrational level involved in the WP. By scanning the wavelength of the probe pulse, we can observe the population distribution of the eigenstates involved in the WP. The peak intensities of the LIF signal are influenced by the Franck-Condon factors and the probe laser intensities, so that the relevant corrections are necessary to obtain the population distribution. 

G. Gerber The observed molecular ATI (above-threshold ionization) in Na2 occurs for laser intensities above 10l2W/cm2. The observation that no additional fragmentation channels (except the 2EJ channel) open up in Na2+ might explain why in femtosecond cluster experiments additional ion fragmentation channels do not show up. Within the femtosecond interaction time even under ATI conditions the lowest Franck-Condon factor (FCF-allowed) vibrational levels are the only ones observed. At even higher intensities when multiple ionization of clusters occurs, the situation can be different. This has not yet been investigated in detail. 

The combination of low-resolution and spectral unzipping into noninteracting polyads enables systematic, model-free surveys of deperturbed Franck-Condon factors, deperturbed zero-order energy levels, and trends in intramolecular vibrational redistribution (IVR) rates and pathways [3]. The H[ res,/i polyad model permits extraction of the most important resonance strengths directly from fits to a few polyads [6-8]. Once these anharmonic... 

In their general discussion of nonradiative decay, Robinson and Frosch offered a reasonable rationalization for the apparent unimportance of solvent effects on nonradiative decay. As a. becomes larger the number of vibrational levels of B that can be brought into near resonance with A is increased, with consequent increase in the value of the Franck-Condon factor. The two effects will tend to compensate so that, although there... 

It is also interesting to estimate the maximum value of the frequency factor in the case of purely quantum nuclear motion. This can be done with the help of the formula W 2nV2Sp, where V2 exp(—2yR) is the exchange matrix element, S is the Franck-Condon factor, p 1 jco is the density of the vibrational levels, and co 1000 cm-1 is the characteristic vibrational frequency of the nuclei. In the atomic unit system, the multiplier 2np has the order 103 and the atomic unit of frequency is 4.13 x 1016s-1 consequently, in the usual unit system, the frequency factor is of the order 4 x 1019Ss-1. The frequency factor reaches its maximum value when S 1. Thus, in the case of purely quantum nuclear motion, the maximum value of the frequency factor is also 1019-102°s-1. 

They also measured a LIF spectrum of the CS radical, which showed that the vibrational distribution peaks at v" 1 3 and decreases at higher vibrational levels. These measurements only extended up to v" = 6 because of the low Franck-Condon factors for transitions from higher vibrational levels of CS(X) in the band sequence they measured. 

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