Measured Stark widths of several spectral lines of Pb III

The Stark full widths at half of the maximal line intensity (FWHM, omega) have been measured for 25 spectral lines of Pb III (15 measured for the first time) arising from the 5d(10)6s8s, 5d(10)6s7p, 5c(10)6s5f and 5d(10)6s5g electronic configurations, in a lead plasma produced by ablation with a Nd:YAG laser. The optical emission spectroscopy from a laser-induced plasma generated by a 10 640 angstrom radiation, with an irradiance of 2 x 10(10) W cm(-2) on a lead target (99.99% purity) in an atmosphere of argon was analysed in the wavelength interval between 2000 and 7000 A. The broadening parameters were obtained with the target placed in argon atmosphere at 6 Torr and 400 ns after each laser light pulse, which provides appropriate measurement conditions. A Boltzmann plot was used to obtain the plasma temperature (21,400 K) and published values of the Stark widths in Pb I. Pb II and Pb III to obtain the electron number density (7 x 10(16) cm(-3)); with these values, the plasma composition was determined by means of the Saha equation. Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium (LTE) conditions and plasma homogeneity has been checked. Special attention was dedicated to the possible self-absorption of the different transitions. Comparison of the new results with recent available data is also presented. (C) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.