In reply to Mark Iverson-ZeroPoint's message of Mon, 24 Oct 2011 10:54:51 -0700: Hi, [snip] >In this example, the laser pulse of energy into the material gets coupled in >thru the electrons (the first thing encountered since they effectively are a >shield around the nucleus), but then that energy is 'transferred into the >molecule', which I translate as 'into the lattice'. The article states that >the 'conical intersections' is the key to this photon-to-molecule-to-lattice >transfer of energy... [snip] I think what they mean is that the electron motion is converted into motion of the atomic nuclei inside the atoms of the molecule. Once this has happened, the molecule can break apart once the nuclei separate sufficiently. However this is a gas molecule they are talking about. In a lattice all the atoms are linked, i.e. the entire lattice may be seen as one large molecule, so perhaps you are right. However there is a big difference between UV radiation of a few eV and nuclear reaction energy of several MeV. Regards,
Robin van Spaandonk http://rvanspaa.freehostia.com/project.html
