| Popis: |
The radiative lifetime of 1s2s /sup 3/S/sub 1/ Li/sup +/ ions has been measured by a comparison of the count rate of spontaneous decay photons (210 A) to a laser-induced fluorescence signal proportional to the total number of metastable ions. The ions were confined in a rf-quadrupole trap, and the fluorescence signal used was the intercombination transition 1s2p /sup 3/P/sub 1/ to 1s/sup 2/ /sup 1/S/sub 0/ at 202 A. The /sup 3/P/sub 1/ state was populated from /sup 3/S/sub 1/ by absorption of laser photons at 5485 A. The result is tau/sub r/=58.6 +- 12.9 sec (95% confidence level); theory predicts tau/sub r/=49.1 sec. |
