In this award, funded by the Experimental Physical Chemistry Program of the Chemistry Division, Prof. Dennis J. Clouthier of the University of Kentucky and his graduate research students will investigate the high-resolution, electronic spectroscopy of a series of main-group reactive intermediates. These studies will generate radicals in a free jet expansion and probe them with a variety of laser-based spectroscopic methods.
These studies will provide the spectroscopic tools to enable researchers to optically probe the complex, reactive chemical systems involved in the chemical vapor deposition of semiconductors. In addition, some of the Si-containing species studied may also be present in space, and the laboratory measurement of their spectra will allow the determination of their presence there from spectra from astronomical sources.
