Photodissociation dynamics of nitromethane at 213 nm studied by ion-imaging

The photodissociation dynamics of nitromethane (CH3NO2), following photoabsorption at 213 nm in the π∗ ← π transition, has been studied using ion-imaging. The state-resolved velocity and angular distributions were measured for the CH3, NO, and O atom fragments. The CH3 velocity distribution consisted of two peaks with different angular distributions; the slow and fast components showed isotropic and anisotropic distributions, respectively. The NO and O fragments also showed slow components with isotropic angular distributions. The results observed consistently indicate that these slow photofragments were possibly produced by the concerted three-body dissociation channel.