Atomic Beam Resonance Method for Excited States

Eleftherios Panagiotis Apostolidis, Lorenzo M. Narducci

Yuzhu Wang

A method is proposed for generating a near-monoenergetic atomic beam by deflection resulting from the pressure of light of a resonance frequency. A system in which a beam of atoms passes through N periodically distributed regions of interaction with laser radiation is considered: the system ensures a high selectivity in respect of the atomic velocities. The following applications of deflection of monoenergetic atoms are considered: analysis of the velocity distribution in an atomic beam, determination of the lifetime of excited atomic states, and testing of the theory of photon statistics.

Natarajan D. Bhaskar, Bernardo Jaduszliwer, Benjamin B. Bederson

A new method for measuring cross sections for the scattering of electrons by laser-excited atoms is described. It is a generalization of the atomic-beam recoil technique, taking advantage of the recoil of atoms during resonant photon interactions to spatially separate excited from nonexcited atoms. A preliminary value for the total cross section for the scattering of electrons by the $3^{2}P_{\frac{3}{2}}({m}_{F}=3)$ state of sodium at 4.4 eV is presented.

Daniel Kleppner

Haibo Meng, M. R. Wang

Al and ln cylindrical targets were irradiated by a homemade UV excited CO2 laser beam. A ground-state populated neutral atomic beam was generated, and the time profile and absolute densities at different positions from the target surface were measured by laser resonance fluorescence. Compared with atomic beams which are generated by ordinary methods such as oven or gasdynamic, this atomic beam has the following properties: