Sub-Doppler two-photon-excitation Rydberg spectroscopy of atomic xenon: mass-selective studies of isotopic and hyperfine structure

Abstract

Mass-selective sub-Doppler two-photon excitation (TPE) spectroscopy is employed to resolve isotopic contributions for transitions to high-energy Rydberg levels of xenon in an atomic beam, using narrowband pulses of coherent ultraviolet light at 205–213 nm generated by nonlinear-optical conversion processes. Previous research (Kono et al 2013 J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 46 35401), has determined isotope energy shifts and hyperfine structure for 33 high-energy Rydberg levels of gas-phase xenon and accessed Rydberg levels at TPE energies in the range of 94 100–97 300 cm−1 with unprecedented spectroscopic resolution. The new isotopic-mass-resolved results were obtained by adding a pulsed free-jet atomic-beam source and a mass-selective time-of-flight detector to the apparatus in order to discern individual xenon isotopes and extract previously unresolved spectroscopic information. Resulting isotope energy shifts and hyperfine-coupling parameters are examined with regard to trends in principal quantum number n and in atomic angular-momentum quantum numbers, together with empirical and theoretical precedents for such trends.