Excited Atoms in the Flash Photolysis of some Germanium Compounds

Abstract

We have recently reported measurements of the rates of the collisional relaxation of various atoms amongst the spin-orbit components of their ground electronic states; an approximate correlation exists with other types of molecular energy transfer.^1-3 We present here an outline of some qualitative observations of the production and relaxation of Ge(4¹D₂) and Ge(4³P_j) in the flash photolysis of a number of germanium compounds. Atomic germanium vas selected for study because the ground state comprises a ‘normal’ Landé multiplet and should exhibit ‘Inverted’ relaxation as compared for example to Fe(a⁵D_j) which equilibrates initially in the high energy substates. The low lying states of germanium are listed In table 1.⁴ The flash photolysis apparatus was of standard design^1-3 and spectra were recorded with a Hilger medium quartz spectrograph.