10min:

NING FANG, CHRISTOPHER T. KINGSTON, DAVID C. K. LIAO, ANTHONY J. MERER AND SHUENN-JIUN TANG, Department of Chemistry, University of British Columbia, 2036 Main Mall, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z1.

During our studies of niobium methylidyne, NbCH, we were continually faced with the presence of the much stronger and frequently overlapping niobium oxide spectrum. This motivated us to begin a thorough investigation of NbO throughout the visible region in order to document the somewhat irregular nature of the vibrational structure of its electronic spectrum. The ( n ,0) bands, where n =1, 2, 3, of the B⁴ X^{4 -} electronic transition were recorded at high resolution. Two (3,1) hot band transitions corresponding to the B⁴ _-1/2 X⁴ _3/2^- and B⁴ _1/2 X⁴ _1/2^- sub bands were also studied using high resolution methods. The vibrational dependencies of the rotational and hyperfine structure as well as other interesting aspects of the spectra will be presented.