Resonance ionization spectropscopy measurement of the vapor pressure of several molecular species

In recent years resonance ionization spectroscopy (RIS) has found increasing application to various problems involving detection of low levels of atomic, and more recently molecular, species. This work demonstrates the usefulness of RIS in measuring vapor pressure curves of molecular species at very low pressures. Specifically, the vapor pressures versus temperature relationship for rubidium iodide (RbI) and potassium iodide (KI) was measured by applying RIS to atomic Rb and K, using a two-laser system. A pulsed molecular nitrogen laser first dissociated the RbI to produce ground-state Rb atoms in the experimental cell. A flashlamp-pumped dye laser then ionized the Rb in a process wherein two photons of the same wavelength are absorbed, the first exciting Rb via an allowed transition to an upper state (5(2)S/sub 1/2/ (YIELDS) 6(2)/sub 1/2 or 3/2/) lying in energy slightly more than half the distance to the ionization limit, and the second photon ionizing the excited Rb. In the case of KI, an excimer-laser-pumped dye laser was used in a similar way.