Quasiresonant Excitation of Lithium 2p–4d and 2p–4s Transitions in Li-Cd Vapor Mixture

Abstract

We performed quasiresonant laser excitation of Li–Cd vapor mixtures at 460.3 nm (2p–4d) and 497.2 nm (2p–4s). The initial population of the Li(2p) level is caused by three processes: collisional dissociation or photodissociation of the Li2(B1Πu) molecules or energy transfer in Li2(B1Πu) and Li(2s) collisions. The Li(4d,4s) atoms radiatively decay towards Li(3p), from which collisional population transfer to Cd(53PJ) occurs, followed by three-body reactive collisions which produce the LiCd(22Π ) excimer states

Resonance 2s-2p excitation of lithium in the Li + Cd system

“…is the photon flux for one laser pulse, which in our case is 1.7×10 24 s −1 cm −2 [23]. The duration of the laser pulse allows absorption of a second laser photon during the laser pulse [11]. We solved numerically the rate equations for a given set of parameters and compared solutions with experiment.…”

“…Blue-green diffuse bands of the LiCd molecule have been observed as a result of photochemical reactions [7][8][9]. Several other excitation paths have also been studied [10,11]. Recently, we have studied collisional processes occurring upon 3d excitation of lithium in lithium vapour [12] and Li-Cd vapour mixture [13].…”