Laser-induced emission spectrum of CuO2 in argon matrices

Abstract

When argon matrices containing atomic Cu and O2 or O3 molecules at 10 K are excited with the blue laser lines of a krypton ion laser, several electronic emissions with extensive vibrational structure are observed. These were characterized as CuO2 emissions by the use of oxygen-18 isotopic enrichment experiments where each member is split into a triplet, thereby indicating a CuO2 molecule with equivalent oxygen atoms. A second progression observed only when Cu atoms were deposited with argon–ozone samples is tentatively attributed to a resonance Raman progression of the Cu2O molecule. No emissions from CuO have been observed in these experiments.