Depopulation of the 5 3P 1 state of cadmium by collisions with ground-state Cd and noble-gas atoms

Abstract

Cadmium vapour contained together with a noble gas in a quartz fluorescence cell at a controlled temperature, was irradiated with pulsed dye-laser radiation which excited the Cd atoms to the 5 3P 1 state. The effective decay rate of the 5 3P 1 atoms was determined in relation to the Cd or noble-gas densities by methods of fluorescence spectroscopy with time resolution. The experiments yielded the total depopulation cross sections of 167, 1.1 × 10 −3, 3 × 10 −4, 6.1 × 10 −4, 1.3 × 10 −3 and 3.3 × 10 −3 Å 2 for collisions with ground-state Cd, He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe atoms, respectively.