Knowledge Bank

An Argon ion laser is used to perturb the $NO/NO2/N2O4$ chemical system. The perturbation is monitored, in different experiments, with the Laser induced Fluorescence (1), the Infrared Optical Double Resonance (2) and the OptoAcoustic experimental techniques. It appears that the absorption of visible laser light in $NO2$ induces some non radiative processes, which in turn result into a temperature increase. That variation has two main contributions to the evolution of the system through the Boltzmann distribution of population and through the chemical equilibrium connecting $NO2$ and $N2O4$ Evidence for the first effect will be given and it is hoped that the occurrence of the second - chemical - effect will also be demonstrated, either experimentally or through simulations