On the excitation mechanism of the He-Zn laser

By means of fluorescence, decay measurements in a He-Zn pulsed afterglow, the Zn II laser transitions at 5894 and 7479 Å have been assigned to Penning collisions with He(2
³
S
1
) metastable atoms. The Zn II 6102-Å transition is ascribed to charge transfer collisions with He+. Penning and charge transfer cross sections are presented.