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Electron Impact Ionization of Metastable Rare Gases: He, Ne and Ar
Published
Author(s)
M A. Ali, Philip M. Stone
Abstract
Ionization cross sections by electron impact of atoms are important quantities needed for modeling of low temperature plasmas and gas discharges. Although experimental and theoretical studies of ionization of ground states of atoms have been extensive, much less information is available about the larger cross sections for ionization of excited states. We report results for ionization cross sections of 1s2s 3S of He, np5 (n+1)s 3P2 and 3P0 metastable states and 3P1 and 1P1 excited states of Ne and Ar where n = 2 and 3 respectively. We use the Binary-Encounter-Bethe (BEB) method of Kim and Rudd to calculate these cross sections. We compare our results with the few available experimental results and with results from other theoretical methods.
atoms, BEB, cross sections, electron impact, ionization
Citation
Ali, M.
and Stone, P.
(2007),
Electron Impact Ionization of Metastable Rare Gases: He, Ne and Ar, International Journal of Mass Spectrometry, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=840903
(Accessed October 6, 2025)