Abstract

Recently^1,2 it was shown that the x-ray emission and electrons of laser plasma produced by the femtosecond pulses of moderate intensity (I ~ 10¹⁶ − 10¹⁸ W/cm²) can be effectively used to excite the low-lying nuclear levels with the energy up to a few 100 keV. Due to the huge difference in the energy of the first excited state of different isotopes (for example 13,275 keV (₇₃Ge), 563 keV (₇₆Ge), 596 keV (₇₄Ge), etc.) that occurs usually in nuclear spectra it is easy to excite only some specific isotopes in the natural mixture. The low- lying isomer states of the nuclei are usually characterized by the high value of the conversion coefficient. Therefore to separate the isotopes in mixture we can use the following scheme. At the first stage we dress the ions produced in laser plasma, for example, by depositing them on substrate. And, at the second stage, the internal conversion decay of the excited nuclei produces the ions of the desired isomer. The ions can be easily extracted with the help of conventional methods and deposited on the separate substrate.

© 2002 Optical Society of America