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Physical Review A

Absolute measurement of the photoionization cross section of the excited 7S state of cesium

S. L. Gilbert, Martin Charles Noecker, Carl Wieman

Published Jun 1, 1984• 20 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report the first measurement of the absolute cross section for photoionization of the $7S$ state of cesium. The measurement employed a new technique in which the density of the excited-state atoms was determined by the amount of fluorescence. The cross section for photoionization by 540-nm light is 1.14(10)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\ensuremath{-}19}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^{2}$. We also propose a second new technique for the absolute measurement of photoionization cross sections which is based on modulated fluorescence.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.29.3150

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An atom trapping technique for determining absolute, total ionization cross sections (TICS) out of an excited atom is presented. The unique feature of our method is in utilizing Doppler cooling of neutral atoms to determine ionization cross sections. This fluorescence-monitoring experiment, which is a variant of the ``trap loss'' technique, has enabled us to obtain the experimental electron impact ionization cross sections out of the Cs 62P3∕26\phantom{\rule{0.2em}{0ex}}^{2}{P}_{3∕2}62P3∕2​ state between 7eV7\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}7eV and 400eV400\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV}400eV. CCC, RMPS, and Born theoretical results are also presented for both the ground and excited states of cesium and rubidium. In the low energy region (<11eV)(<11\phantom{\rule{0.3em}{0ex}}\mathrm{eV})(<11eV) where best agreement between these excited state measurements and theory might be expected, a discrepancy of approximately a factor of five is observed. Above this energy there are significant contributions to the TICS from both autoionization and multiple ionization.
We report the first absolute measurement of the cross section for photoionization from a selectively excited short-lived atomic singlet state. Employing two simultaneous tunable laser pulses, the $3s3p^{1}P_{1}^{o}\ensuremath{-}3{p}^{2}^{1}S_{0}$ autoionization resonance in MgI was found to have a peak cross section of (8\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}4)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}${10}^{\ensuremath{-}16}$ cm2{\mathrm{cm}}^{2}cm2 at $\ensuremath{\lambda}300.9$ nm and a half-width of 2.5 nm. The measured ratio of the cross sections to the $3{p}^{2}^{1}S_{0}$ and 1D2^{1}D_{2}1D2​ states was 14:1. The effect of polarization of the lasers has been investigated and shown to provide a means of identifying the angular momentum states of autoionizing levels.
An atom trapping technique for determining absolute, total ionization cross sections (TICS) out of an excited atom is presented. The unique feature of our method is in utilizing Doppler cooling of neutral atoms to determine ionization cross sections. This fluorescence-monitoring experiment, which is a variant of the “trap loss” technique, has enabled us to obtain the experimental electron impact ionization cross sections out of the Cs 6 2P3∕2 state between 7 eV and 400 eV. CCC, RMPS, and Born theoretical results are also presented for both the ground and excited states of cesium and rubidium. In the low energy region (<11 eV) where best agreement between these excited state measurements and theory might be expected, a discrepancy of approximately a factor of five is observed. Above this energy there are significant contributions to the TICS from both autoionization and multiple ionization.