Mid-infrared laser absorption spectroscopy of the Ne-NO(X2Π) complex.

Abstract

The rovibrational spectrum of the Ne-NO(X2Π) open-shell complex has been measured in the 5.3 µm region using distributed feed-back quantum cascade lasers to probe the direct absorption in a slit-jet supersonic expansion. Three P-subbands (P' ← P″: 1/2 ← 1/2, 3/2 ← 1/2, and 5/2 ← 3/2) were observed, where P is the projection of the angular momentum J along the inertial a-axis of the complex. The hyperfine structure due to the nuclei spin of 14N (I = 1) was partially resolved in the P' ← P″: 1/2 ← 1/2 and 3/2 ← 1/2 subbands. The observed mid-infrared spectrum of Ne-NO (X2Π) together with the previously reported microwave spectrum was analyzed using a modified semirigid asymmetric rotor Hamiltonian for a planar open-shell complex. The band origin is located at 1876.0606(97) cm-1, which is blue-shifted from that of the NO monomer by only 0.0888 cm-1. The complex shows strong structural relaxation upon excitation of the overall rotation and the internal rotation of the NO subunit.