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Photodisintegration is a nuclear process triggered by a photon: a gamma ray entering a nucleus and exciting it sufficiently that it emits a subatomic particle, generally the same types as those emitted in radioactive decay. The term photofission is used if the nucleus splits into two nuclei of more-equal mass.
A photon with less energy may still have enough to ionize an atom (photoionization), and with even less, may still have enough to separate the atoms of a molecule (photodissociation).