The nuclear quadrupole interaction in Pr 3+:LaF 3 — An optical-RF double resonance measurement of the ground electronic state

Abstract

The nuclear quadrupole hyperfine splittings of Pr 3+ in LaF 3 have been measured for the ground electronic state using a RF optical resonance technique. A hamiltonian H = P[(I 2 z− 1 3 I(I+1) + (η/6)(I 2 +−I 2 -)] was fitted to the data with z P=4.185 ± 0.003 MHz and η = 0.105 ± 0.010. Linewidths of 180 kHz were observed.