Rydberg states of diatomic van der Waals molecules

The study of highly excited molecular states opens the way to fascinating research owing to the possibility to answer fundamental questions about interatomic interactions, non-trivial behaviour of molecules in such states, and emission to lower-lying electronic states, to which are not accessible from the ground state. During my presentation, I will detail an experimental study of low Rydberg states of Me2 metallic atom homodimers and MeRg van der Waals complexes, where Me=Cd, Zn, and Rg – rare gas atom. Particularly, I will describe a method to determine the shape of the double-well potential in CdAr including a potential barrier. Also, I will pay attention to technical solutions used in our laser spectroscopy experiment of molecules cooled down in a supersonic beam.