10min:

TSUYOSHI HIRAO, PINA COLARUSSO AND PETER F. BERNATH, Department of Chemistry, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1.

The absorption spectrum of dichloroborane BHCl₂ was accidentally recorded during Fourier transform emission measurements of HBO. Gaseous dichloroborane was generated by the reaction of amorphous boron powder with CaCl₂ at 1400 C. The bands centred near 2617, 1089 and 892 cm^-1 were assigned as the ₁ (B-H stretch), the ₅ (HBCl bend), and the ₆ (BCl₂ antisymmetric stretch) fundamental modes, respectively. Molecular constants were determined from rotational analyses of these bands. This is a first analysis of the rotational structure of the ₅ and ₆ modes.