Experimental and theoretical study of the electronic states and spectra of PbLi

Gas phase emission spectra of the hitherto unknown free radical PbLi have been measured in the NIR range with a Fourier-transform spectrometer. The emissions were observed from a fast flow system in which lead vapor in argon carrier gas was passed through a microwave discharge and mixed with lithium vapor in an observation tube. Five electronic transitions have been found in the wavenumber range 3800-10 000 cm⁻¹. Bands from two excited states to the ground state were measured at high spectral resolution such that rotational analyses could be performed and accurate molecular parameters derived. In order to aid in the analysis of the experimental data, a series of relativistic configuration interaction calculations has been carried out to obtain potential curves for the low-lying states of PbLi and also electric dipole transition moments connecting them. As in the lighter molecules of this group, CLi and SiLi, the ground state of PbLi is found to be 3/2) with a spin splitting of about 2000 cm⁻¹. The first excited state is (A 1/2), and two observed band systems are assigned to the transitions A→X₁ and A→X₂. Two more excited states, (B 3/2) and C 1/2, are identified from the observed spectra with the help of the computed data, and their spectroscopic constants are determined. In contrast to PbH and PbF, the ab initio results indicate a very complicated low-energy electronic structure for the PbLi radical, with 19 bound electronic states calculated to lie below 3 eV.