Internal Energy Content of n-Butylbenzene, Bromobenzene, Iodobenzene and Aniline Molecular Ions Generated by Two-photon Ionization at 266 nm. A Photodissociation Study

A technique to investigate photodissociation kinetics on a nanosecond time scale has been devised for molecular ions generated by multiphoton ionization (MPI) using mass-analyzed ion kinetic energy spectrometry. The branching ratio or rate constant has been determined for the photodissociation of the n-butylbenzene, bromobenzene, iodobenzene, and aniline molecular ions generated by MPI at 266 nm. The ion internal energies have been estimated by comparing the measured kinetic data with the previous energy dependence data. The analysis has shown that only those molecular ions generated by two-photon ionization contribute to the photodissociation signals. Around half of the available energy has been found to remain as molecular ion internal energy in the two-photon ionization process. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd