Intermediate reactions in solid-state photolysis

Photodissociation of impurity-doped solids involving chemical reactions wit h host atoms is experimentally studied. We demonstrate that the formation o f intermediate molecules (HKrCl) plays a central role in the photodissociat ion of HCl in solid Kr, developing considerably the general understanding o f solid-state photolysis dynamics. In addition, these experiments provide a quantitative test for the ab initio calculations of IR absorption intensit ies of novel rare-gas molecules. The measured UV absorption spectrum of HKr Cl is valuable for characterizing the electronically excited states of rare -gas containing species, which is a significant challenge to theory. (C) 20 01 American Institute of Physics.