ZIRCONIUM ISOTOPE SHIFT MEASUREMENT USING LASER PUMPING AND OPTOGALVANIC DETECTION

We report the measurement of the even isotope shifts for eight zirconium transitions between odd levels near 18 000 cm-1 and levels of the e5F even term located above 35 000 cm-1. These transitions are scanned by a probe dye laser; the optogalvanic effect is used to detect laser absorption, while laser pumping from the ground term is employed to increase the population of the odd levels in the hollow-cathode lamp used as the zirconium vapor generator. Because of the narrow bandwidth (5 MHz) of the pump beam, for each isotope only atoms in a specific speed class are pumped, and the probe beam requires no other sub-Doppler techniques for the different zirconium isotopes to be resolved.