The high resolutionnπ* electronic emission spectra ofo- andm-fluoro-benzaldehyde vapours in the region 365–560 nm excited in a discharge are reported for the first time. The spectra of both the compounds consist of theA¹A″ -X¹A′ fluorescence as well as thea³A″ -X¹A′ phosphorescence bands. In the case ofo-isomer, all the eleven out-of-plane vibrations have been observed in the fluorescence and the phosphorescence, though weakly in the latter, whereas in the case ofm-isomer, only ten have been observed in the fluorescence and nine in the phosphorescence. It is found that the most intense bands in both the fluorescence and the phosphorescence spectra of these molecules belong to the trans-O rotamer.

We describe a new method for the polarization of an electret foil which has proved very convenient and yields a foil having very good performance in a microphone. The variations in the charge accumulation on the electret foil and its decay with time as well as the variation of the microphone sensitivity with different microphone parameterse.g. different thicknesses of the electret foil, different back plates and different polarization techniques has been investigated. The sensitivity of the home-made microphone is estimated as 1 mV/μbar. The working of this type of microphone and its comparison with a commercial microphone as used in a (laboratory made) single beam photoacoustic spectrometer is discussed.

A brief description of the photoacoustic spectrometer including microphone biasing and the photoacoustic cell is given. The photoacoustic spectra of some rare earth oxides in the form of powders have been recorded. It is seen that the atomic levels of triplyionized rare earths which are not fluorescent appear very prominently in the photoacoustic spectrum. The spectra for terbium and praseodymium oxides do not show clear peaks probably due to the presence of different stoichiometric forms.

Vibrational spectra of α-naphthol,β-naphthol andβ-naphthol-OD have been recorded in the solid and solution phases. A number of bands, common to all the three compounds, have been correlated with earlier naphthalene assignments and an attempt has been made to identify certain frequencies with vibrational modes that are centred in the substituentsOH andOD. TheC_s symmetry is assumed for each molecule.

The photoacoustic spectra of Rhodamine 6G (Rh6G), Rhodamine B (RhB) dyes and their mixtures were recorded at different concentrations. It is observed that in the mixture the photoacoustic signal increases due to excitation transfer from Rh6G to RhB in the wavelength region 480–530 nm. The excitation transfer rate estimated from these data show that resonance is dominant rather than the collisional transfer process.

Two-photon optogalvanic transitions in Ar glow discharge with Nd: YAG laser pumped dye laser excitation in the frequency range 13520–16520 cm⁻¹ has been studied using linear and circular polarization. The intensities of two-photon optogalvanic transitions are very sensitive to changes in the incident laser power which is not the case with one-photon transitions. Intensity ratio for circular and linear polarized light for two photon transitions 6s′[1/2]°1←4s[3/2]°2, 6s′[1/2]°0←4s[3/2]°2, and 5d[1/2]°0←4s[3/2]°2, 5d[1/2]°1←4s[3/2]°2 are quite different from the other two-photon transitions. This has been explained as due to near one photon resonance of 4p′[3/2]1 level for the first pair and 4p′[1/2]1 for the second pair of transitions. The ratio of optogalvanic intensity for circular to linear polarized light has been theoretically estimated and compared with the observed results.

Heroin, morphine and narcotine are very large molecules having 50, 40 and 53 atoms respectively. Moderately high resolution photoacoustic (PA) spectra have been recorded in 9.6 µm and 10.6 µm regions of CO₂ laser. It is very difficult to assign the modes of vibrations for PA bands by comparison with conventional low resolution IR spectra. The ab initio quantum chemical calculations were used for determining the molecular geometries and normal mode frequencies of vibrations of these molecules for assignments of PA spectra.