Interatomic potentials of metal dimers: probing agreement between experiment and advancedab initiocalculations for van der Waals dimer Cd2

Observation of gerade Rydberg state of Cd2 van der Waals complex cooled in free-jet expansion beam and excited using optical-optical double resonance method

We report on the observation of a gerade Rydberg electronic energy state of Cd₂ van der Waals (vdW) complex vibrationally cooled in a free-jet expansion beam. Cd₂ in the beam were excited from the X¹0_g⁺(5¹S₀) ground via the b³0_u⁺(5³P₁) intermediate to the final gerade state using optical-optical double resonance (OODR) method. A pronounced vibrational progression with partly resolved isotopologue components was recorded and analyzed. The analysis of isotopic separation indicated the excitation to high vibrational levels (υ^'≈50). A comparison with the result of ab initio calculations reveals, that Cd₂ was most probably excited to the ³1_g -state correlating with the 6³S₁ atomic asymptote.

Nuclear magnetic resonance parameters in Zn2, Cd2 and Hg2 dimers: relativistic calculations

The potential energy curves and the NMR properties: nuclear spin–spin coupling constants and nuclear shielding constants have been calculated for Zn2, Cd2 and Hg2 dimers using density functional theory. The calculations have been carried out using the relativistic four-component Dirac–Coulomb Hamiltonian, and, in the case of energy curves, also relativistic effective core potentials. In case of NMR parameters, the relativistic effects turned out to be critically important even for the lightest dimer, Zn2. The importance of the spin–orbit coupling depends on the internuclear distance: these effects tend to be significant for short internuclear distances.

High-temperature continuous molecular beam source for aggressive elements: An example of zinc

Expansion of Zn₂ or ZnRg (Rg = rare gas atom) in a molecular supersonic beam constitutes a considerable technical challenge due to the high zinc melting point and high zinc reactivity with stainless steel at high temperatures. In order to overcome these difficulties and meet the requirements for spectroscopy of van der Waals molecules containing zinc, a high-temperature source-module of the supersonic molecular beam for aggressive elements was designed. The module was tested in the laser-induced fluorescence excitation spectroscopy experiment using the b³0_u ⁺4³P₁←X¹0_g ⁺(4¹S₀) bound ← bound transitions in Zn₂. The new source-module can be used for other aggressive elements for which a laser-vaporization technique has been used to date.