Author Description

Femtosecond electron diffraction (FED) is a novel technique which has recently been employed to study the structures of short-lived transient states connecting initial and final states along a reaction pathway. The photodissociation of triiodide ions represents a simple reaction which one can explore the reaction dynamics through transient structures. The reaction life-time is typically a few hundred fs which is within the time resolution of our FED machine. Therefore, by tracking changes in diffraction patterns during the photodissociation, one can create so-called 'molecular movies' of the reaction dynamics.However, an important practical challenge is to prepare samples which are sufficiently thin (< 100 nm), uniform, and stable and photoactive under vacuum. Several methods of sample preparation are presented and their cons and pros are discussed.Powder diffraction simulations of two different triiodide salts presented in this thesis show that the changes in the intensity of certain diffraction patterns due to the photodissociation of triiodide ions can be up to 57% and should be experimentally measurable.