Spectroscopic study of neodymium soaps in 1-pentanol

The optical absorption spectra of neodymium(III) butanoate, pentanoate, hex anoate, heptanoate and octanoate in 1-pentanol have been measured. This sol vent has been chosen, because the neodymium(III) soaps are sufficiently sol uble in it. A set of free-ion parameters is obtained by fitting the calcula ted energy levels against the experimental levels. The experimental dipole strengths of the transitions are determined from the absorption spectra and parameterised in terms of the Judd-Ofelt intensity parameters Omega(lambda ) (lambda=2, 4, 6). The Omega(4) values go through a maximum for neodymium( III) hexanoate, whereas the Omega(2) parameter increases in the order butan oate<pentanoate< hexanoate<heptanoate<octanoate. The Omega(6) parameter sho ws only an increase between the butanoate and the pentanoate complex, where as this parameter remains fairly constant for the higher homologues of the neodymium(III) soaps. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.