U.S.-France Cooperative Research: Laser Excitation of Van der Waals Complexes of Metal Atoms with H2

这一为期三年的奖项支持美国和法国在实验物理化学方面的合作研究，参与研究的有威廉·布雷肯里奇和犹他大学的研究生，以及巴黎大学奥赛分校的伯努瓦·索普和克里斯托夫·朱韦。研究人员建议开发新的技术来探测电子激发金属原子的半碰撞反应动力学。布雷肯里奇博士将他在光谱学和化学动力学方面的专业知识带到了这次合作中。他的实验室已经开发出合成金属原子与纯氢的络合物的能力。法国研究人员在进行皮秒激光系统实验方面的专业知识和能力对此起到了补充作用。这些实验将提供有关金属原子表面发生的物理和化学过程的信息。通过将他们的工作扩展到皮秒区域，研究人员将能够描述原子/原子碰撞过程中发生的一些较慢的动力学过程。

This three-year award supports U.S.-France cooperative research in experimental physical chemistry involving William Breckenridge and graduate students at the University of Utah and Benoit Soep and Christophe Jouvet at the University of Paris, Orsay. The investigators propose to develop new techniques for probing the reaction dynamics of half collisions of electronically excited metal atoms. Dr. Breckenridge brings to this collaboration his expertise in spectroscopy and chemical dynamics. His laboratory has developed the ability to synthesize complexes involving metal atoms with pure hydrogen. This is complemented by the French investigators' expertise and capabilities for conducting experiments involving a pico-second laser system. These experiments will provide information about physical and chemical processes that occur on the surfaces of metal atoms. By extending their work to the pico- second region, the investigators will be able to characterize some of the slower dynamical processes which occur during atom/atom collisions.