Within recent years the spectroscopy and the photochemistry of the hydrides of the non-metallic elements has been the subject of much study and the results explained with considerable success on the basis of the newer theories of photochemical reactions. In spite of the fact that the photochemistry of ammonia has attracted some attention, yet the investigation of the equally simple molecule of phosphine seems to have been entirely neglected. It is with the object of filling this gap in photochemistry that the present experiments have been undertaken. The investigation naturally falls into three parts: (a) the absorption spectrum of phosphine, (b) the direct photochemical decomposition, (c) the photosensitised decomposition. Experimental data on the photo-oxidation are also of importance in view of the fact that the thermal oxidation of phosphine is a chain reaction.
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H. W. Melville (1932) studied this question.