Notizen: A Contribution to the Stark-Spectroscopy at Low Microwave Frequencies

Abstract

Recently we published a construction of a micro­wave-microwave double resonance spectrometer [1], which allows a variety of experiments. An essential part of it is a “stripline” absorption cell. Although Stark-Spectroscopy [2] gave a very important impetus to the investigation of rotation spectra and is in use for three decades, measure­ments below 6.5 GHz are few in number compared to the frequency region above 6.5 GHz. The reason is that generally the line intensity decreases at lower frequencies and the cross sections of the standard waveguides are larger. If one does not use special waveguides * a higher Stark voltage has to be applied to produce the necessary Stark field for modulation. This requires a rather powerful Stark square wave generator** to load and unload the capacity of the absorption cell. Measurements in the low frequency region may be useful since at these lower frequencies the density of rotational spectra is sometimes considerably lower than at higher frequencies, which faciliates the assignement. We noticed that the stripline cell, which transmits from DC to 18 GHz in a coaxial type mode, may be used for Stark-Spektroscopy by feeding the Stark voltage and the microwave simultaneously to the septum. After having finished our experiments, we noticed that S. Weisbaum [4] et al. measured the transitions 32 - 3a and 52 - 53 of HDO at 486.50 and 824.64 MHz, respectively, by a similar tech­nique. The radiofrequency was connected together with the Stark voltage to the septum of a conven­tional Stark cell. In Fig. 1 we give the details of the set up. To combine the microwave and the square wave we use “monitor tees” *. The square wave is fed into the monitor port which transmits a 100 kHz square wave. For example, a residual square wave of 140 V is observed at the microwave port when applying a 400 V square wave. To prevent any influence of the square wave on the microwave sourcje we use a piece of waveguide as a high pass filter. At the output of the absorption cell another piece af waveguide acting as a high pass filter protects the detector cristal. The cell we used for the measurements presented in Table 1 and Fig. 2 is made of an X-band waveguide R100 (cut off for the TE10-mode 6.56GHz). The construction is similar to that given in Fig. 1 of the previous paper [1], but TNC connectors** are used. The cell has been tested for a voltage of 2500 V between septum and the waveguide walls. The attenuation of the microwave on the stripline between 0.4 and 2.4 GHz is about 1.5 dB.