Computational Study of Resonantly Ionizing Rubidium Vapor by Nanosecond Laser Pulses

Abstract

An investigation of the resonant interaction of the rubidium atoms with an intensity (10 kW cm -2 ≤ I ≤ 2 MW cm -2 ) and a wavelength close to that of the D 1 and D 2 transitions of the rubidium atom (5S 1/2 → 5P 3/2 or 5S 1/2 → 5P 1/2 , λ D1 = 780 nm, λ D2 = 795 nm), which has passes through rubidium vapor with density (10 11 - 10 14 cm -3 ) been studied theoretically. The system of equations describing the processes of Collisional ionization and multiphoton ionization of rubidium vapour resonantly excited with nanosecond pulsed laser is solved. The dependence of the ion density on the laser intensity and the atomic density of rubidium are considered. The result of calculations revealed that, both quadratic ion density dependence on laser intensity and linear behaviour of the ion density versus rubidium density for 5S 1/2 → 5P 3/2 transition is due to photoioization process. In contrast, for 5S 1/2 → 5P 1/2 transition, the ion density dependence is nonlinear and indicates that the collisional processes play the major contribution in the total ionization. Also, the obtained results showed reasonable agreement with the experimentally measured values of the ion density dependence given by Bakhramov et al . In addition, the analysis of mutual competition between the different ionization processes considered for the ion yield as a function of both laser intensity and atoms density are also presented this work.