Collisional broadening of saturated absorption in neon

Saturation spectroscopy involving laser light fields of two different frequencies has been applied to the investigation of Ne*-Ne collisions in an absorptive neon discharge. The pressure broadening of the saturation signals is interpreted in terms of “weak” collisions. Half the signal width results from velocity shifts of 2p4 atoms rather than from oscillator dephasing. The mean velocity shift is considerably larger than in collisions with helium atoms.