DEPENDENCE OF THE INTERACTION POTENTIALS OF AR-HF AND N-2-HF ON HF BOND-LENGTH

We explore in detail the nature of the intermolecular interactions in two HF containing complexes, ArHF and N2HF, at vibrationally excited HF stretching states using both high overtone spectroscopic and ab initio computational methods. By using an infrared intracavity laser-induced fluorescence technique, second overtone spectra of the two HF complexes have been obtained for the HF stretches and their combination modes with low-frequency van der Waals vibrations. The two complexes show the same trend that both van der Waals bond strength and rotational constant increase smoothly with v of the HF stretch. The investigation of the intermolecular potential above minimum provides a rigorous test of ab initio calculations. In particular for the ab initio calculations using an efficient basis set incorporating bond functions, the technique reproduces reasonably well the anisotropy of the interaction potential of Ar and HF. It is found that the intermolecular potential depends strongly upon the HF bond length only at the linear Ar-H-F geometry.