Abstract

A dense sodium vapor in a high-pressure buffer of argon has been simultaneously excited by short (4 ns) laser pulses from two lasers: the first tuned to one of the D line transitions at 589 nm and the second tuned to the photoionization threshold of the 3p states near 406 nm. The temporal evolution of the system was studied with and without the photoionizing laser pulses. At early times (∼100 ns) excited state populations are determined by energy transfer collisions between two laser-excited 3p atoms while the ion/electron density is controlled by super elastic heating of "seed" electrons followed by electron impact ionization of excited state atoms. At late times (∼ 1 μs) excited state populations are controlled by collisional- radiative recombination processes. Excitation transfer rates into the 4d, 5d, 6d, and 6s levels are measured. © 1981 American Institute of Physics.

Department(s)

Physics

International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)

0021-9606

Document Type

Article - Journal

Document Version

Final Version

File Type

text

Language(s)

English

Rights

© 2023 American Institute of Physics, All rights reserved.

Publication Date

01 Jan 1981

Included in

Physics Commons

Share

 
COinS