Abstract

The atomic oxygen transition at 844.6 nm, involving the lowest excited triplet states (3s ³S - 3p³P), allowed the development of one of the earliest gas lasers^[1] and is still of wide interest in applied and fundamental laser physics and spectroscopy. When atomic oxygen (and inversion) is produced in O₂-noble gas discharges, anomalous broadening can be recorded on the fluorescence at 844.6 nm. The same wavelength fluorescence is used to monitor oxygen in combustion environments after two photon excitation from the ground state. High resolution spectroscopy of this transition is by itself important in the frame of a quantitative investigation of isotope and hyperfine effects in the lightest atom with a doubly magic nucleus^[2] and in view of a new laser cooling scheme.^[3]

© 1992 IQEC