Measurement of Relative Metastable Level Population of Gd Atoms in Hollow Cathode Lamp with LIF Method

Seyed Hassan,Ata Koohian

doi:10.4236/jmp.2010.11011

Abstract

Relative metastable level population of metal plasma having low-lying metastable states departs from equi-librium value. It needs to be experimentally investigated. This paper reports the use of hollow cathode lamp based Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy technique to measure Relative metastable level popu-lation of metal in a plasma produced by a hollow cathode lamp. The relative population of ground state and 533 cm-1 levels of Gd atoms in hollow cathode lamp is measured with LIF method.

Highlights

Gd metal has widespread applications in medical, astronomy and nuclear industries
This paper reports the use of hollow cathode lamp based Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) spectroscopy technique to measure Relative metastable level population of metal in a plasma produced by a hollow cathode lamp
The relative population of ground state and 533 cm-1 levels of Gd atoms in hollow cathode lamp is measured with LIF method

Summary

Introduction

Gd metal has widespread applications in medical, astronomy and nuclear industries. Work on various parameters of this metal has drawn the attention of many researchers [1,2]. The scattered atoms of the Gd metal in the lamp have metastable levels, with low energy and high life time. LIF is a process where atoms are excited to higher electronic energy states via laser absorption and induces fluorescence radiation. The measurements of the relative population of the ground state and the 533 cm-1 level are required These levels have wavelengths of 5618 A° and 5791 A° respectively and will be excited to 17795 cm-1 level and the radiation from the atomic transition to level 215 cm-1 can be observed on the PMT (Figure 3). By observing the number of fluorescence photon at the excited wavelengths of levels 0 and 533Cm-1 and by putting these numbers into (3) and solving these equations simultaneously in the steady state conditions, the relative population of the two levels is obtained

Conclusions

Experimental Method