Knowledge Bank

Spectrally resolved emission from the $A~$ excited state of HCP has been observed. The fluorescence displays a long progression in even quanta of the bend and a short progression in the C-P stretch. Forty one vibrational energy levels have been observed, with the highest having 27 quanta in the bending mode, located at $16,912cm-1$ above the ground state. The energy levels are very harmonically spaced, even at the highest energy observed. Dr. Stephen Ross is attempting to fit a bending potential to the data, using the semi-rigid bender Hamiltonian, and this will be presented if completed. The result of lifetime measurements of the excited states of HCP will also be presented.