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Updated: May 29, 2026

Coulomb Explosion Imaging as a Tool to Distinguish Between Stereoisomers
Published on: August 18, 2017
Spectral signatures of inter-system crossing mediated by energetically distant doorway levels: examples from the
Kyle L Bittinger1, Wilton L Virgo, Robert W Field
1Department of Chemistry, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.
Abstract:
We review recent research on the acetylene S(1) state that illustrates how mechanistic rather than phenomenological information about intersystem crossing (ISC) may be obtained directly from frequency-domain spectra. The focus is on the dynamically rich "doorway-mediated" ISC domain that lies between isolated spectroscopic spin-orbit perturbations and statistical-limit interactions between one singlet "bright state" and a quasi-continuum of triplet "dark states". New and improved experimental and data processing techniques permit the statistical-model curtain to be drawn back to reveal mechanistically explicit pathways via one or more identifiable, hence, manipulatable, doorway states, between a user-selected bright state and the undifferentiated bath of dark states.
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