Microwave Cavity Spectroscopy

Abstract

The influence of vibrational and collision energy on ion-molecule reactions was investigated by measuring the cross sections for reactions of NH3(+) created with varying degrees of excitation in the umbrella bending and symmetric stretching modes. Under these conditions, the three major product channels for the NH3(+)/CD3NH2(+) system are CD3NH2(+), CD2=NH2(+) and CD3NH3(+). Two minor product channels correspond to NH3D(+) and NH4(+). This reaction is found to be mode selective based on the reactivity of two isoenergetic vibrational states having differing concerted atom motions. The reaction of state selected ammonia ions with CD4 produces two major products, deuterium abstraction (NH3D(+)) and collision induced dissociation (NH2D(+)). The reaction was found not to be mod selective. In the NH3(+)/THF system, four products were identified: hydrogen abstraction (NH4(+)), charge transfer (C4H8O(+)), proton transfer (C4H9O(+)) and an endothermic product corresponding to charge transfer with loss of H (C4H7O(=)). The branching ratios show a dependence on ammonia ion vibrational state In separate experiments, it was demonstrated that the new class of quantum cascade lasers that produce tunable infrared coherent radiation are well suited to cavity ring-down detection of ammonia. A detection limit of less than one part per billion was achieved.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Feb 26, 2001
Accession Number
ADA395582

Entities

People

  • Richard Zare

Organizations

  • Stanford University

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Charge Transfer
  • Chemical Reactions
  • Chemistry
  • Coherent Radiation
  • Collisions
  • Detection
  • Dissociation
  • Electron Transfer
  • Lasers
  • Microwaves
  • Molecules
  • Nitrogen Compounds
  • Quantum Cascade Lasers
  • Reactivities
  • Spectroscopy

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Combustion science or combustion engineering.
  • Molecular Photonics/Laser Physics

Technology Areas

  • Directed Energy
  • Quantum Computing