High-resolution laser spectroscopy between 0.9 and 14.3 THz in a supersonic beam: Rydberg-Rydberg transitions of atomic Xe at intermediate n values.

A laser-based, pulsed, narrow-band source of submillimeter-wave radiation has been developed that is continuously tunable from 0.1 THz to 14.3 THz. The source is based on difference-frequency mixing in the nonlinear crystal trans-4(')-(dimethylamino)-N-methyl-4-stilbazolium tosylate. By varying the pulse length, the bandwidth of the submillimeter-wave radiation can be adjusted between 85 MHz and 2.8 MHz. This new radiation source has been integrated in a vacuum-ultraviolet-submillimeter-ware double-resonance spectrometer, with which low-frequency transitions of atoms and molecules in supersonic beams can be detected mass-selectively by photoionization and time-of-flight mass spectrometry. The properties of the radiation source and spectrometer are demonstrated in a study of 33f ← nd Rydberg-Rydberg transitions in Xe with n in the range 16-31. The frequency calibration of the submillimeter-wave radiation was performed with an accuracy of 2.8 MHz. The narrowest lines observed experimentally have a full-width at half-maximum of ∼3 MHz, which is sufficient to fully resolve the hyperfine structure of the Rydberg-Rydberg transitions of (129)Xe and (131)Xe. A total of 72 transitions were measured in the range between 0.937 THz and 14.245 THz and their frequencies are compared with frequencies calculated by multichannel quantum defect theory.