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The optothermal method has been used to record a rotationally resolved near-infrared spectrum of the carbon monoxide–water binary complex. The vibrational band studied here corresponds to the asymmetric O–H water stretch. All of the transitions in the spectrum are doubled, due to water tunneling within the complex. The present results are used, together with those obtained from previous studies of this complex, to draw several interesting conclusions about the nature of the tunneling dynamics in this system.

Sub-Doppler resolution near-infrared spectra have been obtained for the ν 1 and ν 2 bands of HCN-HF. The molecular constants obtained from these spectra are in excellent agreement with those obtained in previous studies. The high resolution of the present experiments has enabled us to obtain accurate values for the vibrational predissociation lifetimes, namely 0.58(1) × 10 −10 s and 1.35(5) × 10 −8 s, for the ν 1 and ν 2 bands, respectively. This dramatic difference in lifetimes clearly shows that the vibrational predissociation dynamics is highly mode dependent in this system.

The optothermal detection method has been used to obtain gas-phase infrared spectra of the cyclopropane-HF and cyclopropane-HCN binary complexes, both of which show substantial homogeneous broadening. Shifted somewhat from the spectrum of the HF binary complex is an additional band which is tentatively assigned to a larger complex which contains both cyclopropane and HF.