Photodissociation with Polarized Light

This is a review of a small part of the work on photodissociation with polarized light performed by Kent Wilson and his students 1–4] at the University of California at San Diego and the author and his students 5–7] at Columbia. The physics of the experiment has been presented in a recent review by R.N. Zare 8] who was the first to suggest the utility of such work. We comment on the photodissociation of three molecules — I₂,Cd(CH₃), and α-iodonaphthalene.