When potassium vapor contained in a cell of aluminosilicate glass at 300°C is irradiated with the 6328‐Å line of the He–Ne laser, several fluorescence series are excited which originate from the state of the 39K2 molecule. Analysis of the fluorescence allows the spectroscopic constants (cm−1) of the ground state as measured by Loomis and Nusbaum to be corrected, giving The laser line is found to coincide with several molecular transitions. Three of these were determined from analysis of the spectrum to be , and . Radiation from K atoms accompanying K2 excitation is also observed. It is proposed that the mechanism primarily responsible for the atomic potassium emission is the excitation transfer reaction K2*+K → K2 + K*, leaving the K2 molecule vibrationally excited.
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We are grateful to the Spectra‐Physics Corporation for making this laser available to us.
12.
We wish to express our thanks to Miss Helen Johansen for assisting us to use the Berkeley computer programs.
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G. Herzberg, Spectra of Diatomic Molecules (D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc., Princeton, N.J., 1950). The notation throughout this section conforms to that used by Herzberg.
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The upper‐state constants and were recalculated using Loomis and Nusbaum’s result,14 giving a value for and
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We are grateful to P. T. Cunningham and Dr. R. Wolff at the University of California, Berkeley, for making these measurements.
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Evidence for such atom‐atom interchange processes has been provided by the recent crossed‐beam chemiluminescent studies of
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