The Electric Dipole Moment of the B(1)Pi State of ZrO

A laser ablation source combined with a time-of-flight mass spectrometer has been constructed. The static electric field in the mass spectrometer gives rise to a first-order Stark effect splitting from which the permanent electric dipole moment of the B(1)Pi state (v = 0) of (90)ZrO is determined and found to be 3.43 +/- 0.07 D. The X(1)Sigma and B(1)Pi states are further investigated and comparisons with the results from ab initio calculations are made. Copyright 2000 Academic Press.