Ultraviolet photodissociation of iodine monochloride (ICl) at 235, 250, and 265 nm

ICl photolysis in the ultraviolet region of the spectrum (235-265 nm) is studied using the Slice Imaging technique. The Cl*((2)P(1/2))/Cl((2)P(3/2)) and the I*((2)P(1/2))/I((2)P(3/2)) branching ratio between the I((2)P(3/2)) + Cl((2)P(3/2))/Cl*((2)P(1/2)) and I*((2)P(1/2)) + Cl((2)P(3/2))/Cl*((2)P(1/2)) channels is extracted from the respective iodine and chlorine photofragment images. We find that ground state chlorine atoms (Cl((2)P(3/2))) are formed nearly exclusively with excited state iodine atoms (I*((2)P(1/2))), while excited spin-orbit chlorine atoms (Cl*((2)P(1/2))) are concurrently produced only with ground state iodine atoms (I((2)P(3/2))). We conclude that photolysis of ICl in this UV region is a relatively clean source of spin-orbit excited chlorine atoms that can be used in crossed molecular beam experiments. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3592783]