Determination of the spectroscopic properties of indium bromide

Abstract

To develop a more efficient plasma light source, molecules are considered as the prime source of radiation because they can potentially avoid the conversion losses of the low-pressure mercury lamp as well as the thermal losses of the high-pressure mercury lamps. A candidate to serve as the prime radiator in such a lamp could be indium bromide, but spectroscopic data to assess its aptitude are largely unavailable. To increase the knowledge of the spectroscopic properties of these molecules and InBr in particular, an experiment was designed to acquire this information. Laser-induced fluorescence was used to study the radiative properties of InBr for lighting purposes. Using an innovative method to interpret the measured data, detection--excitation (detex) plots, more information can be obtained from the spectra. Also the effect of a background gas and plasma was investigated for both a capacitive and an inductive plasma. Mainly the electronic A-state of InBr was investigated. Results include newly identified rotational transitions, vibrational constants, rotational constants for different vibrational levels, band head wave numbers and Franck–Condon factors for various vibrational transitions.