A study of laser induced fluorescence in neon as a potential particle tracking mechanism /
A new method to register the tracks of charged particles has been proposed employing laser induced fluorescence in the 1s₅ - 2p₉ cycling transition of neon gas as a method of determining the trajectory of a charged particle through that gas. A particle passing through neon gas will leave behind a t...
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| Format: | Thesis Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
[Place of publication not identified] :
[publisher not identified] ;
2000.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://proxy.library.tamu.edu/login?url=http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=727726131&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=2945&RQT=309&VName=PQD |
| Summary: | A new method to register the tracks of charged particles has been proposed employing laser induced fluorescence in the 1s₅ - 2p₉ cycling transition of neon gas as a method of determining the trajectory of a charged particle through that gas. A particle passing through neon gas will leave behind a trail of atoms trapped in the 1s₅ metastable state. These metastable atoms can be made to fluoresce by pumping them to the 2p₉ state with a properly tuned laser. The 2p₉ state only decays back to the 1s₅ state, allowing the process to be repeated. The lifetime of the cycling transition is long enough to image when the neon atom is isolated, but collisions with other atoms can shorten this lifetime considerably. In this work the collisional deactivation rate has been measured from room temperature to the boiling point of neon. The collisional mixing rate ranged from 0.261 x 10⁻¹¹[] at 30K to 3.1x10⁻¹¹[] at 300K. The resulting lifetime was found to be 1130ns in 10torr of neon. The life of the neon cycling transition proved to be too short to allow the imaging of a charged particle giving a maximum photon yield of 11photons/cm along the trajectory of a 5 MeV alpha particle. |
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| Item Description: | Vita. "Major Subject: Physics". |
| Physical Description: | xii, 82 leaves : illustrations ; 28 cm. Issued also on microfiche from University Microfilm Inc. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references (leaves 70-72). |