The Electronic Spectrum of Si2

J Phys Chem Lett. 2022 Aug 25;13(33):7624-7628. doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.2c02200. Epub 2022 Aug 11.

Abstract

The optical spectrum of Si2+ is presented. The two electronic band systems observed near 430 and 270 nm correspond to the two lowest optically allowed transitions of Si2+ assigned to 4Σu-(I) ← X4Σg- and 4Σu-(II) ← X4Σg-. The spectra were measured via photodissociation spectroscopy of mass-selected ions at the level of vibrational resolution, and the determined spectroscopic constants provide detailed information about the geometric and electronic structure, establishing molecular constants of this fundamental diatomic cation that enable astrophysical detection on, for example, hot rocky super-Earth-like exoplanets.