Name: Anonymous 2005-11-01 4:50
hey /sci, I've been working on a project recently and for it, I need a gas laser of a custom wavelength. I managed to find the NIST database of atomic spectra (http://physics.nist.gov/PhysRefData/ASD/index.html), but all they list are ions of elements. I was wondering: why is this? does matter need to be ionized to emit photons, or did they simply omit it for some reason? if so what was that reason? any insight any of you guys could provide would be helpful.