Narrow coherence-induced peaks in Doppler-free spectra of thorium

We report the observation of narrow peaks in Doppler-free spectra of thorium. The peaks are superimposed upon saturation-broadened line profiles in thorium atomic spectra by use of counterpropagating cw laser beams with resonance ionization mass spectrometry detection. At low laser powers the spectra show a conventional Lamb dip. As the laser power is increased, a narrow peak obscures the dip (for two of four transitions studied). The narrow peak is attributed to coherence effects at high laser powers. To confirm this assignment, we calculated the saturated absorption line shapes by using the theory of Haroche and Hartmann [Phys. Rev. A 6, 1280 (1972)]. The spectral simulations reproduce the narrow peaks and show the same dependence with laser power and transition strength as do the data. There are some quantitative discrepancies, particularly in the overall saturation broadening, but given that there were no adjustable parameters in the calculations, the agreement between theory and experiment is considered quite good. The Einstein A coefficients used in the calculations were determined from an analysis of the laser-power dependence of the saturation broadening for each transition