A study of resonance structure in neon, argon, krypton and xenon using metastable excitation by electron impact with high energy resolution

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Abstract
Cross sections for the excitation of metastable states by electron impact have been studied as functions of incident energy up to 5 eV above the lowest metastable thresholds. The FWHM of the energy spread of the incident beam was typically 20 meV. A crossed-beam interaction region was used and the metastable atoms were detected by a channel electron multiplier placed in their direction of drift. Precautions were taken to avoid detection of scattered electrons and UV photons by the metastables detector. The incident energy scale could be calibrated from the onset positions of the metastable states, whose energies are accurately known from spectroscopic data. The energies of resonance structures in the cross sections could therefore be obtained, and are compared with the results of previous metastable-excitation and electron-transmission experiments.