Experimental and theoretical investigation of high-power laser ionization and dissociation of methane

M Sharifi; F Kong; S L Chin; H Mineo; Y Dyakov; A M Mebel; S D Chao; M Hayashi; S H Lin

doi:10.1021/jp074053f

Experimental and theoretical investigation of high-power laser ionization and dissociation of methane

J Phys Chem A. 2007 Sep 27;111(38):9405-16. doi: 10.1021/jp074053f. Epub 2007 Sep 1.

Authors

M Sharifi¹, F Kong, S L Chin, H Mineo, Y Dyakov, A M Mebel, S D Chao, M Hayashi, S H Lin

Affiliation

¹ Department of Physics, Engineering Physics and Optics, Laval University, Quebec City, Quebec, GIK 7P4, Canada.

PMID: 17764161
DOI: 10.1021/jp074053f

Abstract

The main purpose of this paper is to report the high-power laser ionization-dissociation of CH(4) at various femtosecond (fs) laser intensities (from 1 x 10(14) W/cm(2) to 2 x 10(15) W/cm(2)) with a laser pulse duration of 48 fs. The generalized molecular Keldysh theory has been applied to calculate the ionization yields for CH(4)+ and CH(4)++. Outside the influence of the fs intense laser, we propose to calculate the mass spectra due to the decomposition of CH(4)+ and CH(4)++, using the Rice-Ramsperger-Kassel-Marcus (RRKM) theory. The agreement between the experimental mass spectra and calculated mass spectra seems to be reasonable.