Determination of the effective radiative lifetime of the 6 3P1 atomic mercury level in low-pressure mercury discharges

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Abstract
Experiments are described in which low‐pressure mercury, mercury‐argon, and mercury‐krypton discharges were irradiated with a dye laser pulse at 405 nm, thus exciting mercury atoms from the metastable 6 3P0 level to the 7 3S1 level. The 7 3S1 level decays radiatively to the 6 3P levels. By recording the time dependence of the 6 3P1 level density at the 254‐nm fluorescence signal, the effective radiative lifetime of this level was determined. These measurements were performed for a wide range of mercury vapor densities. From the effective radiative lifetime and the 6 3P1 level density, the 254‐nm output can be calculated. Reasonable agreement is found for two discharges of which the 254‐nm output had been measured directly.