1999MNRAS.303..721B

New radiative lifetimes have been measured for the 5s ³P°_0,1,2 and 5s ¹P°₁ levels of GeI using a laser-produced plasma subject to selective laser excitation. A diffraction grating based emission spectrometer of moderately high resolution has been used to remeasure the branching ratios of the 4p–5s depopulating transitions. The oscillator strengths of astrophysical interest, which have been derived from these new data, are compared with theoretical values calculated within a pseudo-relativistic Hartree–Fock approach. The new set of f-values has been compared with the few results available in the literature, which are generally characterized by a large scatter and a low accuracy. The solar photospheric abundance of germanium deduced from the new atomic data of the present work is A_Ge = 3.58±0.05, on the usual logarithmic scale, in agreement with the meteoritic value.