“…Experimentally, it was demonstrated that the laser initiation can be photochemical in nature at least for some systems, such as heavy metal azides and secondary explosives, cyclotrimethylene trinitramine (RDX, C 3 H 6 N 6 O 6 ) [20], pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN, C 5 H 8 N 4 O 12 ) [5,21,22,23], and furazan-based molecules [24,25]. In particular, it was observed that the (non-thermal) photoexcitation of PETN molecules does lead to the formation of reactive radicals, and that the further explosive decomposition reaction proceeds by a chain or autocatalytic (chain explosion) mechanism [5,21,22]. Recent quantum-chemical calculations of thermal decomposition of PETN molecules, crystals, and crystal surfaces [26] ruled out a possibility of thermal initiation of PETN observed in those experiments [5,21,22].…”