Knowledge Bank

The technique of optically pumped supersonic molecular beam lasers is applied to the problem of high vibrational level spectroscopy in the potassium dimer. This method of creating molecular beams of highly excited ground state molecules for scattering or spectroscopy uses the non-equilibrium molecular beam as the gain medium for an optically pumped laser. Downstream of the active region, laser-induced fluorescence on the vibrationally excited molecules is performed. Analysis of the results and the potentials for potassium dimer will be presented and compared with the general trends in other alkali molecules.