Cu ion core conservation from reactant to product in the Cu+F2 chemiluminescent reaction

Electronic chemiluminescence from the reaction of selected ground state (²S_1/2) or metastable (²D_5/2, ²D_3/2) copper atoms with fluorine has been studied using a hollow cathode-flowing afterglow reactor. The observed signal related to the Cu(²S) and Cu*(²D) atom densities, indicate that the chemiluminescence cross-section for Cu*(²D) atoms is about 10⁴ times larger than for Cu(²S) atoms. This strong propensity is explained in terms of a direct reaction, initiated by a harpooning process, during which the Cu⁺ ion core of the reactant (3d¹⁰ for Cu(²S) and 3d⁹4s for Cu*(²D)) is conserved in the products (ionic structure Cu⁺(3d¹⁰)F^? for the CuF ground state and Cu⁺(3d⁹4s)F^? for the CuF*(a, A, B, C, D) chemiluminescent states).