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Science 19 March 2004:
Vol. 303. no. 5665, pp. 1852 - 1854
DOI: 10.1126/science.1094186
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Reports

Directional Dynamics in the Photodissociation of Oriented Molecules

T. Peter Rakitzis,1* Alrik J. van den Brom,2* Maurice H. M. Janssen2{dagger}

We observed directional dynamics in the photodissociation of an oriented molecule. When a laser dissociated hexapole-oriented carbonyl sulfide molecules, the three-dimensional recoil of carbon monoxide fragments, which we measured with ion imaging, was strongly asymmetric. We obtained a microscopic view of molecular bond breaking that revealed both the sign and the magnitude of the deflection angle of the fragment in the molecular frame. This experimental approach can be applied to study and control the three-dimensional dynamics of photoinitiated reactions of fixed molecules or molecules oriented by emerging techniques.

1 Department of Physics, University of Crete and Institute of Electronic Structure and Laser–Foundation for Research and Technology–Hellas (IESL-FORTH), 711 10 Heraklion-Crete, Greece.
2 Laser Centre and Department of Chemistry, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1083, 1081 HV Amsterdam, Netherlands.



* These authors contributed equally to this work.

{dagger} To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: mhmj{at}chem.vu.nl

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