Abstract
A study of the chemiluminescence under single‐collision conditions of the reactions of the ground state (4s2 1S) and the two metastable (4s4p 3P0 and 4s3d 1D) of atomic calcium with N2O is presented. An earlier study of Ca(3P0)+N2O from this laboratory [P. J. Dagdigian, Chem. Phys. Lett. 55, 239 (1978)] is corrected, and the spectral region investigated is extended into the near infrared (to 890 nm). Chemiluminescence cross sections and photon yields for production of various CaO* band systems are reported for each of the reactant states. In addition, a novel beam–gas scattering technique, which uses a very small Ca beam collimator and sharply focused detection optics, has been employed to measure the yield of short‐lived CaO* (mostly A 1Σ+) emission in the Ca(3P0)+N2O reaction up to 0.3 Torr N2O pressure. The observed increase in yield with pressure is indicative of collisional energy transfer between excited CaO* states produced reactively. The present results are compared and contrasted with similar observations on the well‐studied Ba(1S)+N2O reaction.