Photodissociation dynamics of Cl-2 in a xenon cluster

The photodissociation of a chlorine molecule in the environment of a xenon cluster has been studied experimentally using the real time pump and probe technique through the formation of an XeCl reaction product. The photodisso ciating system is probed in such a way that the movement of a single chlori ne atom in the xenon environment is detected. Various XenCl2 cluster sizes have been investigated leading to the distinction between uncapped, half-ca pped and doubly capped structures for these clusters. These structures have a profound influence on the photodissociation dynamics. Retrapping of one chlorine atomic fragment and stabilization of the XeCl reaction product is only observed for the half and doubly capped clusters. The experimental wor k is complemented by classical molecular dynamics calculations to get a ful l picture of the photodissociation.