Time-Resolved Spectroscopy to investigate the radiative lifetimes of Na$_2$ $6^1\Sigma^+_g $(8,31)

In recent years, there has been an increased interest in the determination of the lifetime values as a result of growing demand for accurate knowledge of the transition dipole matrix elements of alkali molecules. Here we present our experimental study of the lifetime of the $6^1\Sigma^+_g$ (8,31) electronic state of sodium dimers. In this experiment the second harmonic of a Nd:YAG laser is used to pump two pulsed dye lasers that are used to make the X$^1\Sigma^+_g$ (v=0,31) $\rightarrow$ A$^1\Sigma^+_u$ (7,30) $\rightarrow 6 ^1\Sigma^+_g$ (8,31) transition. We observed the fluorescence resulting from this molecular transition to measure its radiative properties using a Stern-Volmer plot. We will present results of the measurement, as well as improvements made to the measurements, and provide comparison with the recent theoretical calculations. \\