Nonpolar nitrous oxide dimer: fundamentals of the mixed 14N2O-15N2O dimer and new combination bands of (14N2O)2 and (15N2O)2 involving the Bu, intermolecular bend.

Spectra of the nonpolar nitrous oxide dimer in the region of the N2O v1 fundamental band are observed in a pulsed supersonic slit jet expansion probed with a tunable diode laser. Four bands are analysed: two fundamentals of the mixed 14N2O-15N2O dimer and combination bands involving the intermolecular disrotation of the monomers (Bu intermolecular bend) for both (14N2O)2 and (15N2O)2. Because the determination of this intermolecular frequency relies on the experimentally unknown frequency of the (forbidden) symmetric fundamental, we used previously published ab initio results and their proximity to our experimental values to assign the upper state of the combination bands. The resulting intermolecular disrotation frequencies are 42.3(1.0) and 41.6(1.0) cm(-1) for the (14N2O)2 and (15N2O)2, respectively. This represents the first observation of the mixed 14N2O-15N2O dimer, and the direct determination of a second intermolecular frequency for the nonpolar (N2O)2.