Eur. Phys. J. D (2013) 67: 36
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-30529-x

Regular Article

Observation of new near infrared emission band systems of small bismuth clusters in solid neon matrix^*

¹ Interdisciplinary Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kinki University, Higashi-Osaka 577-8502, Japan
² Graduate School of Natural Science and Technology, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan
³ Research Core for Extreme Quantum World, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan
⁴ Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan
⁵ Research Center for Quantum Universe, Okayama University, Okayama 700-8530, Japan

^a e-mail: wakaba@chem.kindai.ac.jp

Received: 26 August 2012
Received in final form: 12 November 2012
Published online: 6 March 2013

Abstract

Laser induced fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy was applied to small bismuth clusters embedded in a solid neon matrix at 3 K. Near infrared (NIR) optical emission spectra were recorded in a range of 6200–11 600 cm^-1 by an excitation with 1.79 eV photons using a pulsed dye laser system. Three new NIR band systems were identified by their origin bands at 8207, 9625 and 11 395 cm^-1. Each of the NIR systems exhibited the vibrational progression with a common lower state frequency at 151 cm^-1. Temporal decay profiles for selected NIR emission bands showed upper state lifetimes on the order of a hundred of microseconds, explainable by the transition between mixed spin states. Low-lying electronic states for small bismuth clusters, Bi_n (n = 2 − 4), are discussed along the theory and experiment reported so far.