Controlling bond rearrangement in ethanol: An interesting failure?

ORAL

Abstract

In the past, we have successfully used adaptive control coupled to ultrafast pulse shaping to influence bond rearrangement induced by photofragmentation of a number of small molecules such as acetylene, ethylene, ethane, and methanol. Our standard control objective is the improvement of a ratio of ionization products, such as D2H+/D3+ from CD3OH. Typically, the shaped laser pulse optimized by the search algorithm can enhance the desired ratio of product channels by a factor of two or three. When this technique was extended to ethanol, however, we could not substantially improve either the D2H+/D3+ or D3+/D2H+ ratio from CH3CD2OD. This talk discusses that puzzle.

*Augustana University personnel and equipment are supported by NSF grant PHYS-2011864. J.R. Macdonald Laboratory personnel and equipment are supported by U.S. Department of Energy grant #DE-FG02-86ER13491.

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Presenters

  • Eric Wells

    • Augustana University
    • Augustana Univ

Authors

  • Eric Wells

    • Augustana University
    • Augustana Univ

  • Charles J Schwartz

    • Augustana University

  • Tiana A Townsend

    • Augustana University
    • J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University

  • Naoki Iwamoto

    • Kansas State University

  • Kanaka Raju P.

    • Kansas State University

  • Travis Severt

    • Kansas State University
    • J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University
    • J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Physics Department, Kansas State University

  • Bethany C Jochim

    • Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA
    • Kansas State University

  • Kevin D Carnes

    • Kansas State University
    • J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University

  • Itzik Ben-Itzhak

    • Kansas State University
    • J. R. Macdonald Laboratory, Department of Physics, Kansas State University