Microwave spectroscopy and interaction potential of the long‐range He⋯Kr+ ion: An example of Hund’s case (e)

The borderless world of chemical bonding across the van der Waals crust and the valence region

The definition of the van der Waals crust as the spherical section between the atomic radius and the van der Waals radius of an element is discussed and a survey of the application of the penetration index between two interacting atoms in a wide variety of covalent, polar, coordinative or noncovalent bonding situations is presented. It is shown that this newly defined parameter permits the comparison of bonding between pairs of atoms in structural and computational studies independently of the atom sizes.

Cold Anisotropically Interacting van der Waals Molecule: TiHe

We have used laser ablation and helium buffer-gas cooling to produce titanium-helium van der Waals molecules at cryogenic temperatures. The molecules were detected through laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Ground-state Ti(a^{3}F_{2})-He binding energies were determined for the ground and first rotationally excited states from studying equilibrium thermodynamic properties, and found to agree well with theoretical calculations based on newly calculated ab initio Ti-He interaction potentials, opening up novel possibilities for studying the formation, dynamics, and nonuniversal chemistry of van der Waals clusters at low temperatures.

Potential energy curves of diatomic molecular ions from high-resolution photoelectron spectroscopy. I. The first six electronic states of Ar2+

High-resolution photoelectron spectroscopic data have been used to determine the potential energy curves of the first six electronic states of Ar2+. The potential energy functions properly include the effects of the long-range interactions and of the spin-orbit interaction and are of spectroscopic accuracy (1-2 cm(-1)) over a wide range of internuclear distances. The total number of adjustable parameters could be reduced to only 12 by truncating the long-range interaction series after the R(-6) term and assuming an R-independent spin-orbit coupling constant. This assumption was verified to be valid to an accuracy of +/-2 cm(-1) over the range of internuclear distances between 3.0 and 4.6 A. The interaction potential proposed by Siska [P. E. Siska, J. Chem. Phys. 85, 7497 (1986)] was generalized to a form that is expected to be sufficiently flexible to describe chemical bonding in other diatomic molecular ions. The potential energy curves are more accurate than the best available ab initio curves by two orders of magnitude and provide quantitative information on dissociation energies and equilibrium internuclear distances. The local maximum between the two potential wells of the I(1/2g) state was determined to lie 62 cm(-1) below the Ar(1S0)+Ar(+)(2P(3/2)) dissociation limit, and the II(1/2g) state is found to be significantly more bound (De=177 cm(-1)) than previously assumed.

A free radical

This chapter describes my research career, spanning the period from 1955 to 2000. My initial PhD work at the University of Southampton was concerned with the electronic structure and spectra of transition metal complexes and included studies of the electronic spin resonance (ESR) spectra of magnetically dilute single crystals. After a year at the University of Minnesota, I went to Cambridge University and for the next six years studied the ESR spectra of liquid phase organic free radicals. I commenced work on the microwave magnetic resonance (MMR) spectra of gaseous free radicals in 1965, and this work continued until 1975. I moved from Cambridge to Southampton in 1967. In 1975 I turned to the study of gas phase molecular ions, using ion beam methods. In the earlier years of this period I concentrated on simple fundamental species like H(+)2, HD(+), and H(+)3. In the later years until my retirement in 1999, I concentrated on the observation and analysis of microwave spectra involving energy levels lying very close to a dissociation asymptote. DEDICATION This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Harry E. Radford, who died while it was being written. Harry was a quiet and shy man, who often worked alone and never indulged in self-promotion. So far as I know, he was never awarded any medals or prizes, nor elected to any academies or learned societies. Nevertheless he was an experimentalist of the highest originality and quality, a theorist of true intellectual depth, and a remarkable pioneer in many of the techniques of studying free radicals that are now commonplace.