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The vibrational, rotational, and translational energy distributions for the CO photofragments from the 193, 248, and 308 nm photolysis of Ni(CO)4 in a supersonic molecular beam have been determined by vacuum ultraviolet laser‐induced fluorescence. The measured product energy distributions appeared to be statistical, with equilibrium between the degrees of freedom investigated. The distributions were significantly colder than those calculated with a microcanonical statistical model using published bond energies. To model the measured distributions, it was necessary to postulate that the unsaturated nickel carbonyl products are formed in a stable electronically excited state. By using an excited state energy consistent with published fluorescence experiments, excellent agreement was obtained between the measured distributions and those calculated using a microcanonical statistical model. These results indicate that for 193 nm photolysis, essentially all of the Ni(CO)n products are electronically excited, wi...

The photofragmentation dynamics of Fe(CO)5 in a supersonic molecular beam have been studied for photolysis wavelengths of 193, 248, 266, and 351 nm. The CO photofragments formed under these collision‐free conditions were detected by vacuum ultraviolet laser‐induced fluorescence (VUV LIF). This allowed for the determination of the rotational and vibrational distributions for the CO products and, by using Doppler spectroscopy, the translational energy distributions were also determined. These data are presented along with the details of a statistical model calculation which reproduces the experimental data very precisely. The statistical model for the photodissociation dynamics, which works at all photolysis wavelengths studied, is based on sequential elimination of CO ligands, with complete energy randomization in the intermediate ground state Fe(CO)n fragments between elimination steps. The detailed mechanism for the ultraviolet photochemistry of Fe(CO)5 is discussed in light of these results and previous...