Determination of the rate coefficients of the electron-impact excitation from the metastable states to 2p states of argon by the emission line ratios in an afterglow plasma

The rate coefficients of electron-impact excitation from the argon metastable to 2p states are measured in the afterglow of an rf pulsed capacitive discharge. In the afterglow, the 2p state densities are measured by optical emission spectroscopy, the time-resolved 1s state densities are measured by laser absorption, the time-resolved electron temperature (T-e) and electron density are measured by a Langmuir probe. By employing these measured parameters, the electron-impact excitation rate coefficients are obtained from the rate balance equations of 2p states in the Te range from 0.7 to 1.2 eV. The measured rate coefficients are in good agreement with those obtained from the cross sections measured by Boffard et al. In addition, we obtain rate coefficients of the transitions from the metastable states to 2p(1,7,10), whose measured values have not been reported before. These rate coefficients are also compared with the calculated ones (Zatsarinny et al with the R-matrix method, Srivastava et al with the Distorted wave method).