Prechemical

From this time until about 10−12 s, in the prechemical phase, some initial reactions and rearrangements of these species occur.

But much remains to be done in understanding the complex physical, prechemical and chemical stages of radiation interactions in even the simplest, biologically relevant, condensed materials.

An implication of this rationale is that a "prechemical" electron transfer occurs prior to the initiating step of carcinogen-biotarget interaction, which can culminate in adduct formation, intercalation, alkylation, etc. […]