Transfer of excitation between 2p levels of neon induced by collisions with neutral neon atoms

Investigation of the neon 2p collisional excitation transfer processes via CW laser collisionally induced fluorescence

“…The value they measured for the cross section for disalignment collision agreed well with other literature values [13][14][15] and was approximately 50 times the cross section for collisional excitation transfer out of this level. The cross section they obtained for excitation transfer out of the neon 2p 2 level, obtained by eliminating the effects of disalignment on the fluorescence decay, agrees well with a number of literature values [7,8,16] measured using CW laser excitation. From their investigation they concluded that alignment relaxation can affect the fluorescence decay and lead to overestimation of the collisional excitation transfer coefficient [17].…”

“…Table 2 shows the comparison between the values of those influential ground-state atom collisional 2p excitation transfer coefficients obtained by this method with those of the EUT group [6][7][8][9], demonstrating the good general agreement between these sets of coefficients. The coefficients obtained directly, as detailed in section 4.1, are of high precision and support the values obtained by Smits [9] in a continuous neon discharge.…”

“…As table 1 illustrates, this investigation has utilized laser excitation over a relatively narrow wavelength range (588.2-616.4 nm) unlike the extensive programme employed by the EUT group [6][7][8][9], whose primary purpose was to investigate all 2p excitation transfer processes. Our investigation is part of a cumulative effort to describe the excited-state kinetics of noble gas discharges, simultaneously linking four diagnostics (optogalvanic effect, optical absorption and emission spectroscopy and LCIF).…”

“…Previously, researchers at the Eindhoven University of Technology (EUT) made a number of detailed investigations of collisional transfer between the 2p states of neon [6][7][8][9] using slowly 1 Present address: Applied Materials, Santa Clara, CA, USA. 2 Present address: Information Systems Engineering, BT, PP 2DAQ, Alexander Bain House, 15 York Street, Glasgow G2 8LA, UK.…”

“…chopped CW tuneable laser radiation with lock-in signal detection. These were conducted in a number of different plasma environments, in the afterglow of an interrupted DC discharge [6,7], in a plasma generated by a proton beam [8] and in a continuous discharge [9]. The afterglow in particular is ideal for such a study since the absence of electrons excludes any 1s-2p excitation.…”