Atoms excitation state, resonance ionization

Whereas in LIMS only one laser with defined wavelength (e.g., Nd YAG - 1064 nm) is used for direct vaporization and ionization of solid samples in laser plasma, in resonance ionization mass spectrometry (RIMS) " one or more lasers are tuned precisely to the wavelength required for the excited states and ionization of evaporated atoms in order to get a highly selective ionization of the analyte. The basic principles of resonant ionization were first described by Hurst and coworkers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory as well as by Letokhov et in Russia. The technology... 

In summary the discussion includes formalism and analysis contributing to the understanding of the nature of unstable states, as well as indicative theoretical and numerical examples from applications to atoms and molecules, and related comparisons with other methods, concerning prototypical problems of autoionization, predissociation, series of isolated and overlapping resonances, structure and spectroscopy of doubly and multiply excited states, multiphoton ionization, field-induced polarization, etc. 

If the work function is smaller than the ionization potential of metastable state (see. Fig. 5.18b), then the process of resonance ionization becomes impossible and the major way of de-excitation is a direct Auger-deactivation process similar to the Penning Effect ionization a valence electron of metal moves to an unoccupied orbital of the atom ground state, and the excited electron from a higher orbital of the atom is ejected into the gaseous phase. The energy spectrum of secondary electrons is characterized by a marked maximum corresponding to the... 

Using two pulsed tunable dye lasers, Na atoms in a beam are excited to an optically accessible ns or ml state as they pass between two parallel plates. Subsequent to laser excitation the atoms are exposed to millimeter wave radiation from a backward wave oscillator for 2-5 [is, after which a high voltage ramp is applied to the lower plate to ionize selectively the initial and final states of the microwave transition. For example, if state A is optically excited and the microwaves induce the transition to the higher lying state B, atoms in B will ionize earlier in the field ramp, as shown in Fig. 16.5. The A-B resonance is observed by monitoring the field ionization signal from state B at fB of Fig. 16.5 as the microwave frequency is swept. 

A third resonance method which has been used to measure the intervals of alkali and Ba Rydberg atoms is delayed field ionization which takes advantage of the increase of the lifetime with L The method used by Safinya et al.15 in the study of Cs nf rch and ni —> ni transitions is typical. Atoms are excited to the ni states in a manner similar to the one used by Fredriksson et al.,1 except that pulsed... 

Three different methods have been used to make microwave resonance measurements of intervals between alkaline earth Rydberg states. In all of these measurements state selective laser excitation of alkaline earth atoms in a beam was combined with one of three forms of state selective ionization of the final states. 

Investigations on the doubly excited states of two electron systems under weakly coupled plasma have been performed by several authors. Such states usually occur as resonance states in electron atom collisions and are usually autoionizing [225]. Many of these states appear in solar flare and corona [226,227] and contribute significantly to the excitation cross-sections required to determine the rate coefficients for transitions between ionic states in a high temperature plasma. These are particularly important for dielectronic recombination processes which occur in low density high temperature plasma, occurring e.g. in solar corona. Coronal equilibrium is usually guided by the balance between the rates of different ionization and... 

Initially the molybdenum fluxes in [55] measured via atomic Mo-lines (379.8 nm, 386.4 nm and 390.3 nm) led to unreasonably high flux values. This was the case because for the calculation of the respective excitation rates the formula of van Regemorter was used [56], as these lines are optically coupled to the ground state (resonance lines). Therefore, experiments were performed to measure the excitation and ionization rates directly both in a linear plasma machine [57] and in a crossed beam experiment with a thermal molybdenum emitter [58], The results can be seen in Fig. 6.17 and show that the experimental values for excitation are about a factor of 5 larger than those from the van Regemorter formula, which leads to a reduction of the flux by the same order according to the smaller S/XB. More refined R-Matrix calculations have later confirmed the same factor and are included in Fig. 6.3. 

In a resonance ionization mass spectrometer, one or more lasers are applied which are tuned precisely to the wavelength required for optical resonance excitation from the atomic ground state... 

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