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Lifetimes of multiply-excited states in nitrogen

1991; IOP Publishing; Volume: 24; Issue: 19 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1088/0953-4075/24/19/001

1361-6455

Nathalie Vaeck, J E Hansen,

Spectroscopy and Laser Applications

It has been observed experimentally that slow highly-ionized atoms are already neutralized on impact with a metal surface due to the strong potential which can 'pull' electrons out of the surface into high-lying multiply-excited atomic states. The authors present quantitative results for decay rates of such multiply-excited states and show that the lifetimes for such states, when the electrons have large values of n, appear to be significantly different in neutral atoms and in the corresponding ions.