Spectroscopy of high n Rydberg states of the triatomic deuterium molecule D3

Abstract

We report first investigations of high principal quantum number Rydberg states of the neutral triatomic deuterium molecule. The experiments were performed using a fast neutral beam photoionization spectrometer recently developed at Freiburg. A fast beam of metastable D3 molecules was created by charge transfer of a D3+ beam in cesium. Rydberg states of D3 were analyzed by pulsed-laser excitation using two-photon resonance-enhanced ionization, electric field ionization and autoionization. Our data identify the 2p 2A2″(N=K=0) state of D3 to be metastable with a lifetime of about 1 μs. The spectral lines following excitation in the ultraviolet spectral range were assigned to s-type and d-type Rydberg-series converging to vibrational ground state, symmetric stretch excited and degenerate mode excited D3+ ion states. By a combination of vibrationally diagonal and non-diagonal transitions, we determined the ionization potential, the symmetric stretch and degenerate mode vibrational frequencies of the 2p 2A2″ state in D3. The data give insight into the influence of the coupling between the Rydberg electron and the ion core on the potential energy surface.