Determination of the de-excitation probability of argon metastable (1s5 and 1s3) atoms on aluminum, stainless steel, silicon, quartz and Pyrex surfaces

The de-excitation probability of argon 1s(5) and 1s(3) metastable atoms on aluminum (alloy 2024), stainless steel (304), silicon (100), quartz (JGS1) and Pyrex surfaces is measured with a low pressure (1-5 mTorr) pulsed capacitively coupled plasma. The de-excitation probability is deduced from the loss rate of the metastable atoms in the late afterglow, which is obtained from the temporal evolution of the metastable atom density measured by laser absorption. Under the low pressure condition, the loss of the metastable atoms is mainly due to volume diffusion and de-excitation on the surface. The measured de-excitation probability for both Ar*(1s(5)) and Ar*(1s(3)) atoms ranges from 0.74 to 0.88 on these five materials, with an uncertainty of +/- 0.11. The measured probabilities on the Pyrex surface are in good agreement with those reported in previous work, and those on aluminum, stainless steel, silicon and quartz surfaces are reported here for the first time.