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Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Physics

Ionization and excitation of Rydberg states in collisions of fast metastable helium atoms with He, Ne and N2

Yu. A. Kudryavtsev, V. V. Petrunin

Published Jan 1, 1991• 0 citations
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Abstract

The cross sections for ionization and excitation into Rydberg states (n = 21-27) were determined for fast (accelerated to 3.9 keV) metastable helium atoms colliding with He, Ne, and N, .An analysis of the collisionally excited helium atoms in terms of their principal quantum number was carried out using for the ionization by an electric field a system capable of separation in accordance with n and was calibrated using signals from Rydberg states excited selectively by laser radiation.

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The cross sections for ionization and excitation into Rydberg states (n = 21-27) were determined for fast (accelerated to 3.9 keV) metastable helium atoms colliding with He, Ne, and N, .An analysis of the collisionally excited helium atoms in terms of their principal quantum number was carried out using for the ionization by an electric field a system capable of separation in accordance with n and was calibrated using signals from Rydberg states excited selectively by laser radiation.
Thermal collisions between laser excited Xe(nf) Rydberg atoms and a variety of neutral atomic and molecular targets have been investigated. In Xe(nf)-HF collisions, n-changing, 4-changing and collisional ionization were observed. For n = 26 and 27, absolute collisional cross sections for these processes have been determined using time-resolved selective field ionization. In addition, the first evidence of molecular rotational excitation through the transfer of energy of electronic excitation from a Rydberg atom is presented. In Xe(nf) - Xe, Kr, Ar, CO2, CO and N2 collisions the dominant mechanism was observed to be 4-changing: no evidence of n-changing or collisional ionization was apparent. Absolute collisional cross sections have been determined for a range of n between 24 and 37. Comparison of these cross sections with those obtained using a theoretical model in which effects due to the Rydberg core are ignored appears to lead to satisfactory results only for Xe, Kr and CO2, whereas when core effects are included satisfactory agreement between experiment and theory is found in all cases.
We showed that there are two main processes that produce the collisional background in the method of the collinear laser photoionization of fast atoms. The first process is the ionization of fast atoms and the second one is the collisional excitation of fast atoms into Rydberg states.The first experimental results on Rydberg states formation cross sections in atomic collisions were obtained. For the first time it has been experimentally obtained such cross sections scaled as n−3.To reduce the collisional noise the use of fast Rydberg atoms ionization in permanent magnetic field is proposed.
We calculate the total and differential cross sections for radiative-collisional excitation of the metastable 2 1 S state of He atoms at collisions with Ne atoms in external radiation fields of various frequencies and polarizations. The calculations are performed for a thermal collision energy of E = 10 −3 atomic units and light intensity of I = 1 MW cm −2 , which corresponds to a single photon absorption by a quasi-molecule during the collision. Both the differential and total cross sections are shown to depend strongly on the relative orientation of the radiation polarization vector and the initial relative velocity vector of the colliding atoms. We analyze the azimuthal scattering asymmetry related to the orientation of the angular momentum of the absorbed photon.
We have excited helium atoms from their metastable 2 3S{}^{3}\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}S3S state to Rydberg states in the range 13<n<5013<n<5013<n<50 in a two-step process via the 3 3P{}^{3}\phantom{\rule{-0.16em}{0ex}}P3P state using light at $\ensuremath{\lambda}=389$ nm and 785--815 nm. Atoms in a thermal beam (100 K) cross partially overlapping laser beams of the appropriate frequencies in the counterintuitive order to exploit the high efficiency of stimulated rapid adiabatic passage. The interaction region is between two plates that can be used for Stark tuning in a few V/cm field or for field ionization. At fields much too low for field ionization, we observe signals attributed to ionization by blackbody radiation. Multiple tests confirm this attribution as the cause of ionization. For example, by heating the plates we observe the expected signal increases. Our experiments reinforce previous work where the interaction between Rydberg atoms and room temperature blackbody radiation is important for experiments.
Helium atoms travelling in pulsed supersonic beams have been photoexcited from the metastable 1s2s 3 S 1 level to Rydberg states with principal quantum numbers exceeding 400 by resonance-enhanced two-colour two-photon excitation using narrow-bandwidth CW laser radiation. To achieve this, the photoexcitation region was shielded and stray electric fields cancelled using a cubic arrangement of 80 mm × 80 mm copper plates. The excited Rydberg atoms were detected by pulsed electric field ionisation downstream from this photoexcitation region. Comparison of the experimental spectra with the results of calculations indicate that the stray electric fields at the position of Rydberg state photoexcitation were reduced to as low as 160 μ V cm –1 . Using helium in these experiments minimises temporal changes in the stray fields resulting from surface adsorption. Measurements performed 70 h apart indicate that the rate of change of these fields was on the order of 2 μ V cm –1 per h, making beams of metastable helium atoms ideally suited as probes for high precision electrometry in spectroscopy experiments involving less readily available species such as positronium or antihydrogen.