Abstract

Atomic vapors generated by cathodic sputtering in a low-pressure rare-gas discharge tan provide a copious source of singly ionized-metal atoms as well as neutral atoms for a wide range of elements. Transitions in Y IJ present a considerable challenge to the technique of saturated absorption in a sputtering discharge: the hyperfine splittings are small, the natural linewidths are quite large (−25 MHz'), and the ions are very susceptible to the effects of velocitychanging collisions (VCC) that introduce large Doppler-broadened pedestals and effectively reduce the resolution.

© 1994 Optical Society of America