PHOTOIONIZATION SPECTROSCOPY OF LIAL

An electronic spectrum is observed for the new heteronuclear metal dim er, LiAl. This dimer is produced by laser vaporization of an alloy met al sample in a pulsed nozzle cluster source. Resonant two-photon photo ionization (R2PI) is employed to collect this spectrum. We observe and characterize two excited electronic states for both the Li-6-Al and L i-7-Al isotopes. The analysis of hotbands provides the vibrational fre quency (318.3 cm(-1)) and dissociation energy (0.75 eV) for the LiAl g round state, which both agree well with the predictions of ab initio t heory.