Vibrational relaxation of nascent diiodide ions studied by femtosecond transient resonance impulsive stimulated Raman scattering (TRISRS); experiment and simulation

Impulsive stimulated Raman scattering performed with femtosecond pulses on resonance with an electronic transition, comprises an all time domain Raman technique providing vibrational dynamics of the ground state chromophore. We report the application of this technique to record transient Raman responses of nascent diiodide ions, undergoing rapid vibrational relaxation following triiodide photodissociation in ethanol solution. Like other Fourier spectroscopic methods, this spectroscopy maximizes high simultaneous time and frequency resolution, making it well adapted, and in the present study exclusively capable, for recovering vibrational dynamics of highly excited molecular populations in transition. Master equation simulations of vibrational relaxation, coupled to quantum wave-packet representation of the light-matter interactions, are combined to provide a semi-quantitative analysis of the experimental results. Previous assignment of spectral narrowing of the nascent diiodide absorption to vibrational relaxation is bourn out by simulations. Inherent limitations and fortitudes of the TRISRS method are theoretically investigated and discussed.