Isotope Shifts and Hyperfine Structure in the Atomic Spectrum of Tin

Abstract

The spectrum of tin was excited in a liquid oxygen cooled hollow cathode tube, and examined by means of a Fabry-Perot interferometer. With the use of highly enriched samples of tin isotopes, isotope shifts of all the even isotopes were measured in the spark line 5s²6s²S_1/2 - 5s²6p²P_3/2, λ6454. The shifts between successive even isotopes vary from 0.0015 cm^-1 for ¹²²Sn and ¹²⁴Sn to 0.0067 cm^-1 for ¹¹²Sn and ¹¹⁴Sn, and this change occurs in two `jumps'. The probable error is about 0.0002 cm^-1. The corresponding isotope shift constants (C values), calculated without allowance for the specific mass shift, vary from 15 × 10^-3 cm^-1 to 40 × 10^-3 cm^-1. The hyperfine structures of the line λ6454 of the odd isotopes ¹¹⁷Sn and ¹¹⁹Sn were measured. The ratio of the splittings is 1.042, in good agreement with the value 1.046 calculated from the nuclear resonance values of the nuclear magnetic moments.