Ultrafast study of the photochemistry of 2-azidonitrobenzene.

[reaction: see text] Ultrafast time-resolved studies of the photochemistry of 2-azidonitrobenzene demonstrate that the lifetimes of excited singlet 2-azidonitrobenzene and 2-nitrophenylnitrene are 500 fs and 8.3 ps, respectively, in solution at ambient temperature. The singlet nitrene is a discrete intermediate but is too short lived to undergo bimolecular reactions.