The photolytic cage effect of iodine in gases and liquids

The photolytic cage effect is studied over a wide density range of several bath gases in the laser flash photolysis of iodine at 694.3 nm. Particular attention is paid to measurements in the ‘‘simple’’ solvents Xe and Kr, which are compared with molecular dynamics calculations. Measurements in polyatomic gases and liquids are also reported, as well as the variation of the cage effect with temperature and applied magnetic field. While measuring the cage effect under such a wide variety of conditions, we simultaneously obtain the second order rate constants for iodine atom combination, which help to establish the detailed mechanism of this elementary chemical reaction.