A study of collisional quenching and radiation-trapping kinetics for Rb(5p) in the presence of methane and ethane using time-resolved fluorescence

An experimental study using time-resolved fluorescence techniques together with theoretical simulations has been conducted and used to determine the quenching cross-sections of rubidium–methane and rubidium–ethane. Radiation trapping was significant under many of the experimental conditions (temperatures 40–130 °C and pressures 50–700 Torr) and a detailed analysis of the interplay between radiation trapping and quenching kinetics was carried out. Modifications of the Holstein equation for radiation trapping were implemented to account for the quasi-2 level behaviour of the Rb atom for high buffer gas pressures, the absolute frequency-dependent absorption cross-section for Rb with variable buffer gas pressures which accounts for the hyperfine splitting of 87 Rb and modification of the trapping factors so that radiation trapping and quenching by an additive quenching gas could be treated simultaneously. Experimental results supported by theoretical simulations bound the quenching cross-sections (σ) of methane and ethane at 40 °C to be σ ⩽ 0.019 Å 2 and σ ⩽ 0.033 Å 2 , respectively. These values are nearly two orders of magnitude smaller than previously reported.