Photodissociation dynamics of acetoxime in gas phase

The dynamics of photodissociation of acetoxime at 193 nm, leading to the formation of (CH3)2C=N and OH fragments, has been investigated. The nascent OH radicals, which are both rotationally and vibrationally excited, were probed by laser photolysis-laser induced fluorescence technique. OH fragments in both v" = 1 and v" = 0 vibrational states were detected with a ratio of population in the higher to lower level of 0.07+/-0.01. The rotational temperatures of v" = 0 and 1 levels of OH radicals are 2650+/-150 K and 1290+/-20 K, respectively. More than 30% of the available energy, i.e., 115+/-21 kJ mol(-1) is partitioned into the relative translational energy of the fragments. The results of excited electronic state and transition state calculations at the configuration interaction with single electronic excitation level suggest that the dissociation takes place with an exit barrier of approximately 126 kJ mol(-1) at the triplet state (T2) potential energy surface, formed by internal conversions/intersystem crossing from the initially populated S2 state. Using the calculated transition state geometry and its energy, the observed energy distribution pattern can be reproduced by the hybrid model within experimental uncertainties. The presence of an exit barrier is further supported by the observation of N-OH dissociation upon 248 nm excitation, where the relative translational energy of the fragments is found to be approximately 96 kJ mol(-1). The photodissociation dynamics of acetoxime is compared with C-OH dissociation in enols and carboxylic acid and N-OH dissociation in nitrous acid. The observed emission (lambda(max)=430 nm) and the N-OH dissociation dynamics indicate crossing of the initially populated state to an emissive state of acetoxime, which is different from the dissociative state.