Measurement of the hyperfine structure and isotope shifts of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 2} {sup 3}P{sub 2}{yields}3s3p{sup 3} {sup 3}D{sub 3}{sup o} transition in silicon

The hyperfine structure and isotope shifts of the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 2} {sup 3}P{sub 2}{yields}3s3p{sup 3} {sup 3}D{sub 3}{sup o} transition in silicon have been measured. The transition at 221.7 nm was studied by-laser induced fluorescence in an atomic Si beam. For {sup 29}Si, the hyperfine A constant for the 3s{sup 2}3p{sup 2} {sup 3}P{sub 2} level was determined to be -160.1{+-}1.3 MHz (1{sigma} error), and the A constant for the 3s3p{sup 3} {sup 3}D{sub 3}{sup o} level is -532.9{+-}0.6 MHz. The isotope shifts (relative to the abundant isotope {sup 28}Si) of the transition were determined to be 1753.3{+-}1.1 MHz for {sup 29}Si and 3359.9{+-}0.6 MHz for {sup 30}Si. This is an improvement by about two orders of magnitude over a previous isotope shift measurement. From these results we are able to predict the hyperfine structure and isotope shift of the radioactive {sup 31}Si atom, which is of interest in building a scalable quantum computer.