Infrared laser-induced isotope-selective dissociation of mixed (CF₃Br)_mAr_n van der Waals clusters

The paper presents the results of studies of IR laser-induced bromine-isotope-selective dissociation of small mixed (CF₃Br)_mAr_n van der Waals clusters (m = 1, 2 and 1 ≤ n ≤ 5 is the number of molecules and atoms in the clusters, respectively). The experiments used a pulsed CO₂ laser to excite clusters and a quadrupole mass spectrometer to detect a molecular cluster beam. The research method is based on the selective vibrational excitation of clusters by IR laser radiation, leading to their predissociation. The possibilities of implementing bromine-isotope-selective dissociation of clusters are considered. The experimental setup and research method are briefly described. The results of determining the cluster dissociation efficiency and selectivity as functions of the energy and frequency of laser radiation are presented. It is shown that resonant vibrational excitation of clusters makes it possible to induce their isotope-selective dissociation. Thus, using a CF₃Br/Ar mixture with a pressure ratio of 1/200, the enrichment factors of the ⁷⁹Br isotope are found to be K_enr(⁷⁹Br) = 1.15 ± 0.04 and 0.95 ± 0.03 under cluster irradiation conditions on the 9R(30) (ν = 1084.635 cm⁻¹) and 9R(24) (ν = 1081.087 cm⁻¹) lines, respectively The achieved dissociation selectivities for the clusters are, respectively, 1.16 ± 0.05 and 0.95 ± 0.04. The results obtained suggest that this method can be used to separate isotopes in molecules containing isotopes of heavy elements, which have a slight isotopic shift in the IR absorption spectra. (laser isotope separation)