Ultrafast relaxation and reaction of diiodide anion after photodissociation of triiodide in room-temperature ionic liquids.

Vibrational dephasing, vibrational relaxation, and rotational relaxation of diiodide (I(2)(-)) after photodissociation of triiodide (I(3)(-)) in room-temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) were investigated by ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy. The vibrational energy relaxation (VER) rate of I(2)(-) produced by the photodissociation reaction of I(3)(-) was determined from the spectral profile of the transient absorption. The rates in RTILs were slightly slower than those in conventional liquids. On the other hand, the coherent vibration of I(2)(-) was not observed in RTILs, and the vibrational dephasing of the photoproduced I(2)(-) was accelerated. This was explained by the interaction between I(2)(-) and I consisting of a caged contact pair in RTILs. The orientational relaxation time of I(2)(-) determined by the transient absorption anisotropy was much longer in RTILs than in conventional liquids due to their high viscosities although the relaxation time was shorter than the prediction from the Stokes-Einstein-Debye (SED) theory. The deviation from the SED prediction was interpreted by the frequency dependence of the shear stress acting on the molecule. The dynamics of I(2)(-) in 1-butyl-3-methylimidazolium iodide ([BMIm]I) were quite different from those in other conventional RTILs: the coherent vibration of I(2)(-) was observed for the time profile of the transient absorption and the initial value of the anisotropy was reduced to 0.31 from 0.36 in conventional RTILs. These results suggest that an ultrafast reaction between the photofragment I and the solvent I(-) may occur during the photodissociation process of I(3)(-). The anomaly in the ground state coherent vibration and steady state Raman spectrum of I(3)(-) also suggest the possibility that I(3)(-) and I(-) can be located in vicinity and interact strongly with each other in [BMIm]I.