Knowledge Bank

Low and high resolution spectra of cobalt monochloride have been observed in the $55-485nm$ region using a laser ablation/molecular beam spectrometer. The CoCl molecules were produced by laser vaporization of a Co rod followed by reaction with $CCl4$ inside a pulsed supersonic jet source. A number of bands were seen allowing vibrational assignments to be made to transitions between the ground state and two excited electronic states with 0-0 origins near 20680.5 and $21257.3cm-1$. The spectra of three vibrational bands, the 0-0 and 1-0 bands of the $[20.7]3\Phi 4-X3\Phi 4$ transition and the 0-0 band of the $[21.3]3\Phi 4-\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">3</mrow>}\Phi 4$ transition, were recorded at high resolution with a Coherent 699-29 ring dye laser. A rotational and hyperfine analysis has been performed on these bands giving an accurate set of molecular constants for the ground and excited states. The assignment of a $\mathrm{<mrow\; data-mjx-texclass="ORD">3</mrow>}\Phi$ state as the ground state is consistent with recent experimental and theoretical predictions for CoH and CoF.