Characteristics of a Simple Spectrophone for Studying Iodine Vapor Absorption of Ar+ Laser Radiation

We discuss the optoacoustic characteristics of a simple spectrophone used to study the absorption of Ar+ laser lines by Iodine vapor. Details of the resulting excited-state processes in molecular I2 and O2 are discussed in the following companion paper. Iodine vapor is a strong absorber of green and blue light, and the resulting fluorescent and disassociative radiation are well known from pre-laser studies (1,2). The excitation by laser radiation, however, has allowed detailed probing of the Iodine excited states (2). Use of the spectrophone has enabled examination of some non-radiative decay phenomena from those excited states.