15min:

C. TAO, C. MUKARAKATE AND S. A. REID, Department of Chemistry, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53233; T. W. SCHMIDT AND S. H. KABLE, School of Chemistry, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.

We have recently observed transitions to the predissociated, quasilinear B¹A' state of CHF using a fluorescence dip detected optical-optical double resonance technique. By exciting selected rovibronic states in intermediate A¹A'' levels belonging to the progressions 2₀ⁿ, 1₀¹2₀ⁿ, and 2₀ⁿ3₀¹, a variety of B¹A' state levels were observed, extending to an energy of 7000 cm^-1 above the B¹A' state origin. In this talk, we will focus on the spectroscopy of the B¹A' state and the excited state barrier to linearity. Experimental data will be compared with ab initio predictions.