Photodissociation of Nitrous Oxide

Abstract

THE action of light on nitrous oxide has been studied by several workers in recent years. It was found by Wulf and Melvin¹ that N₂O, when irradiated by light of 2350 A., broke up into NO and N. Later on, Dutta² studied the absorption spectrum, and found that light was continuously cut off from a long wave-length limit 2750 A., and showed that the energy equivalent of this wave-length accounts for the dissociation of N₂O into NO and N, both in the normal states. I extended this work³ in the Schumann region, and two more continuous absorptions were found beginning from the long wavelength limits 1850 A. and 1580 A., separated by a region of transparency ; it was shown that these further absorptions are responsible for raising N, one of the products of dissociation, to the metastable states ²D and ²P respectively. In short, the absorption of light by N₂O takes place in the following steps.