Atomic Iron Recoil in Multiphoton Dissociation of Ferrocene

Article abstract of DOI:10.1021/j100404a022

The translational energy of atomic iron, produced by a three-photon dissociation of bis(cyclopentadienyl)iron (ferrocene), has been measured by using the atomic multiphoton ionization Doppler line width at 440 nm.The iron atoms have an appreciable amount of recoil, indicating that the ferrocene dissociation process is nonconcerted and does not preserve a center of symmetry.This is also evidence for a dissociation via one or more repulsive electronic states, rather than by statistical, unimolecular decay of a hot ground state.