Photophysics and Molecular Photochemistry Using Lasers: Applications.

In photophysics and molecular photochemistry, the uses of lasers are so many and so different that we can only give some examples. We describe first cases where a laser is used to excite a molecule either to realize a synthesis by a photochemical way (which can be isotopically selective) or to study the nature and the properties of excited states and metastable species and to determine then the mechanism of photochemical or radicalar reactions. We describe then cases where the lasers are used as source of spectroscopic analysis to detect and analyze chemical species, the absorption spectrum of which is constituted of fine lines (small radicals in gas phase, aromatic molecules in Spholskii matrix,. . . ). Finally we examine the use of lasers in the spectroscopy by mirage effect and the photoablation by laser.