PHOTODISSOCIATION OF SOLID OXYGEN WITH TUNABLE ULTRAVIOLET-LASER LIGHT - OZONE PRODUCTION MONITORED VIA FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED-SPECTROSCOPY

Laser irradiation of solid oxygen with monochromatic ultraviolet light (210-250 nm) generates specifically oriented ozone species, Previousl y unobserved absorption features, tentatively assigned to ozone dimers , are detected with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy near the t wo features attributed to a single isolated ozone and to an O ... O-3 complex in each of the nu(1), nu(2), nu(3), and nu(1) + nu(3) regions, Decreasing the wavelength from 250 to 210 nm increases the achievable concentration of the ozone species by more than a factor of 50, and i ncreases the ratio of the dimer to monomer absorptions.