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标题：Role of excited electronic states in the high-pressure amorphization of benzene
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作者：Margherita Citroni ; Roberto Bini ; Paolo Foggi 等
期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2008
卷号：105
期号：22
页码：7658-7663
DOI：10.1073/pnas.0802269105
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：High-pressure methods are increasingly used to produce new dense materials with unusual properties. Increasing efforts to understand the reaction mechanisms at the microscopic level, to set up and optimize synthetic approaches, are currently directed at carbon-based solids. A fundamental, but still unsolved, question concerns how the electronic excited states are involved in the high-pressure reactivity of molecular systems. Technical difficulties in such experiments include small sample dimensions and possible damage to the sample as a result of the absorption of intense laser fields. These experimental challenges make the direct characterization of the electronic properties as a function of pressure by linear and nonlinear optical spectroscopies up to several GPa a hard task. We report here the measurement of two-photon excitation spectra in a molecular crystal under pressure, up to 12 GPa in benzene, the archetypal aromatic system. Comparison between the pressure shift of the exciton line and the monomer fluorescence provides evidence for different compressibilities of the ground and first excited states. The formation of structural excimers occurs with increasing pressure involving molecules on equivalent crystal sites that are favorably arranged in a parallel configuration. These species represent the nucleation sites for the transformation of benzene into amorphous hydrogenated carbon. The present results provide a unified picture of the chemical reactivity of benzene at high pressure.
关键词：benzene crystal ; electronic transitions ; high-pressure chemistry ; two-photon spectroscopy