Two-Photon Time-of-flight Spectra of Rare Gas Excimers.

Abstract

The spectroscopy of the rare gas excimers has been a subject of interest for many years, primarily because the dimers are recognized media for vacuum ultraviolet lasers. Lasing originates from electronically excited ungerade states and terminates on the repulsive wall of the gerade ground state potential energy curve. Excited gerade levels act as storage reservoirs from which ionization can occur, thereby reducing the gain of the laser1. There has also been effort in rationalizing the collisional and radiative relaxation pathways among gerade dimer excited states by considering the shapes of the molecular potential energy curves, and the numerous crossings between them. However, in many instances the potentials used have been model potentials, and not those derived from detailed spectroscopic analyses2.