Argon metastable–cadmium dihalide energy transfer collisions in a flowing afterglow

Abstract

The energy dependence of dissociating collisions between argon metastable atoms and cadmium dihalide molecules have been studied in a flowing afterglow apparatus. The fluorescence spectra obtained in the range of 3000–7600 Å which result from the Ar(3P2)+CdX2 interactions indicate a dominant dissociative excitation production mechanism. The emission spectra are used to narrow the uncertainty in the currently accepted values for the dissociation energy of the CdX2 molecules. The Wigner spin rule (conservation of total electronic spin) was verified for these processes as shown by the dominance of final state triplet production as compared to the virtual absence of singlet spin state production.