Laser chemiluminescence of LiCa

Abstract Emission from diatomic LiCa molecules was obtained upon pumping a mixture of Li and Ca vapors with an Ar + ion laser. The excited LiCa molecules were formed via reactions of excited Li 2 dimers with Ca atoms. The LiCa emission was analyzed spectroscopically and found to be in good agreement with a synthetic spectrum derived from ab initio calculations of the LiCa potential-energy curves