We succeeded in identifying the intermediates in thermal decomposition reac
tions by utilizing the combination of an instantaneous temperature jump ind
uced by the irradiation of picosecond laser pulses and the subsequent obser
vation by time-resolved sum-frequency generation (TR-SFG) spectroscopy. The
short-lived reactive intermediates in the decomposition of formats on NiO(
111) and Ni(111) surfaces were identifie. The irradiation of 1064 nm laser
pulses caused the vibrational peak of the C-D stretching mode v(CD) of bide
ntate formate on NiO(111) to weaken and the v(CD) band of monodentate forma
te to appear. The result on Ni(111) showed the weakening of the v(CD) band
of bridging formate and the appearance of the C=O stretching mode v(C=O) of
monodentate formate. The spectral changes recovered on a 100 ps time scale
but not fully above 400 K for the NiO(111) system and 320 K for the Ni(111
) system, indicating the onset of thermal decomposition in the high-tempera
ture period. The observations suggested that the formate in the stable bide
ntate/bridging configurations transformed to unstable monodentate formats p
rior to decomposition. Temperature- and time-dependent features indicated t
hat the two types of formate were in equilibrium and the equilibrium shifte
d towards the monodentate form by the rapid laser-induced temperature jump
of about 250-300 K. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.