High-resolution infrared spectra of H2–Ne and D2–Ne van der Waals complexes This article is part of a Special Issue on Spectroscopy at the University of New Brunswick in honour of Colan Linton and Ron Lees.

Abstract

Spectra of weakly bound hydrogen–neon complexes have been studied in equilibrium gas mixtures at relatively high spectral resolution (0.05–0.12 cm–1) using a long-path (112 m), low-temperature (24 K) absorption cell and a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. Most of the data cover the region of the H2 or D2 fundamental stretching vibrations in the mid-infrared (λ ∼2.4 or 3.3 μm), but results on the pure rotational S0 (0) band of D2–Ne in the far-infrared (λ ∼55 μm) are also included. The spectra are greatly improved compared to the only previous observation. The results serve as a stringent experimental constraint for testing and improving theoretical determinations of the potential-energy surface, which describes the intermolecular forces for the hydrogen–neon system.