Collisional Energy Transfer of Highly Vibrationally Excited Polyatomic Molecules. The Effect of Excited Molecule Complexity

Collisional relaxation was probed by CO₂ laser activated delayed fluorescence. The experimental information was adopted to determine the average energies transferred per collision (ΔE) from highly vibrationally excited polyatomic molecules to parent collider. The values of (ΔE) decreased with increasing the number of atoms in the excited molecules in line: biacetyl, acetophenone, benzophenone, antraquinone. The dependences of (ΔE) on the number of factors such as: 1) the average vibrational energy residing in the vibrational modes of excited molecules; 2) the potential of intermolecular interaction; 3) the reduced mass, and others were analyzed in details. The general interplay was noticed between (ΔE) and the molecular parameters which determined the increasing interaction strength and the decreasing energy transfer efficiency due to the adiabatic constraints on the energy transfer.