Determination of radiative lifetimes of neutral sulfur by time-resolved vacuum-ultraviolet laser spectroscopy

Abstract

Time-resolved laser spectroscopy was used to measure radiative lifetimes of eight excited states of neutral sulfur in a laser-produced plasma. Excitation from the atomic ground state was performed with pulsed vacuum-ultraviolet (126–140 nm) radiation generated by resonant sum-difference four-wave mixing in krypton gas. The lifetimes of the ${3\mathrm{p}}^3$ ns${\mathrm{}}^3$ ${\mathrm{S}}^{\mathrm{o}}$ (n=5–7) and ${3\mathrm{p}}^3$ nd${\mathrm{}}^3$ ${\mathrm{D}}^{\mathrm{o}}$ (n=4,5) states were measured and are presented together with data available from literature. Relativistic Hartree-Fock calculations of radiative lifetimes were also performed for states where experimental data were available.