Doppler-free spectroscopy of the 5882-Å line ofNeI20

Abstract
An experimental study of pressure broadening and shifts on the 5882-Å line of NeI was conducted with a resolution of one part per billion by means of saturation spectroscopy with a zero-pressure reference line provided by a metastable-atomic-beam apparatus. A broadening of 11±2 MHz per Torr was found for Ne-Ne collisions and an upper limit of 500 kHz per Torr was found for the shift. The cross section for largeangle Ne*-Ne scattering was found to be 46±4 Å2 from collisional cross-relaxation effects. A theory was developed to account for line-shape distortion effects in saturation spectroscopy with optically thick samples.