Optical spectrum of Si3C, and a re-analysis of the C1B1 ← X1A1 transition

Abstract The electronic spectrum of Si3C has been measured in the 710-250 nm region by resonant two-color two-photon ionization spectroscopy. In addition to the strong C1B1 ← X1A1 transition near 400 nm, evidence is found for two weaker features: a broad, largely structureless band near 625 nm, which is assigned to A1B1 ← X1A1 , and a band near 333 nm with partially-resolved vibronic structure, which we assign to E1B1 ← X1A1 . Assignment of the transitions and analysis of their vibrational structure is supported by equation-of-motion coupled cluster calculations. Re-measurement and re-analysis of the C ← X transition at higher spectral resolution and signal-to-noise ratio than that reported previously (Stanton et al., 2005) allows essentially all of the vibronic features to be assigned with confidence.