The objective of the present investigations is to experimentally determinate fundamental molecular properties from which insight into the electronic, and hence chemical, character of small, transient, metal-containing molecules will be revealed. The ultra-high resolution electronic and vibrational spectra of the diatomic molecules. PrO, NdO, CoH, CoF, RhS, and SrF, and the triatomic molecules. TiO₂ and AlC₂, were investigated. These simple systems can provide an understanding of the bonding in more complex system. Optical studies of these transition metal-containing molecules have been performed using laser ablation production combined with laser induced fluorescence detection. The resolution of the recorded spectra in this work is around 30-40MHz. The optical Stark splittings and shifts (Stark effect) of TiO₂, PrO, NdO, CoH, CoF, and RhS were recorded and analyzed to determine the permanent electric dipole moments of the ground and excited states. The optical Zeeman splittings and shifts (Zeeman effect) of PrO and NdO were measured and analyzed to determine the magnetic g-factors of the ground and excited states.

An "effective" Hamiltonian operator that included the molecular rotation, centrifugal distortion, spin-orbit, spin-spin, spin-rotation, lambda-doubling, magnetic hyperfine interactions, as well as the Zeeman and Stark terms was used to model the recorded spectra. The experimentally derived properties were also compared to the published theoretical predictions in an effort to evaluate computational methodologies for electronic structure calculation under development to model and predict metal driven chemistry.

Survey scans of SrF and AlC₂ have been recorded for further investigation.