Imaging the photodissociation dynamics of neutral metal clusters: copper dimer, Cu2, and copper oxide, CuO

The spectroscopy and UV photodissociation dynamics of Cu2 and CuO have been studied using a combination of one- and two-colour excitation and velocity map imaging. Resonant excitation of Cu2 via the J ← X (1)Σg(+) transition leads to significant fragmentation which is interpreted in terms of a combination of direct dissociation of Cu2(+ 2)Π produced in the resonant two-photon ionization process and dissociation of excited Cu2 states above the ionization threshold. By fitting of the kinetic energy release spectra obtained from the velocity map images, we determine a value for the dissociation energy of the cation of D0 (Cu2(+), X (2)Σg(+)) of 1.713 ± 0.025 eV, which, when combined with known ionization energies, yields D0 (Cu2, X (1)Σg(+)) = 1.886 ± 0.026 eV. In other experiments, resonant two colour (1 + 1') excitation of CuO via a range of excited states (C, D, F, H), yields unusually simple VMI images indicating fragmentation into a single dissociation channel which has been identified as Cu* (2)D3/2 + O* (1)D. Taken together, this data gives a CuO bond dissociation energy of 3.041 ± 0.030 eV. Finally, the production of Cu2(+) with kinetic energy = 705 ± 75 cm(-1) is tentatively interpreted as photolysis of Cu3 yielding Cu* + Cu2 X (1)Σg(+) from which a dissociation energy of Cu3 of 0.605 ± 0.030 eV is deduced.