On the determination of radiative lifetimes of excited Mn I and Mn II levels

Time-resolved laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy has been used to measure the lifetimes of 46 Mn I and 7 Mn II levels. A high-current hollow cathode produces an effusive beam of manganese atoms and ions in the ground states and in metastable states. Selected states are populated with tunable dye laser pulses. The following fluorescence is measured by means of a Tektronix 1 GHz transient digitizer. Including the separately measured response function of the system in the evaluation procedure the full decay curve can be applied for a determination of the lifetimes. All measurements are performed with linearly polarized laser beams adjusted to the magic angle in order to exclude systematic error sources. A comparison with literature data is given.