Direct simultaneous measurement of rotational and translational accomodation coefficients

Abstract

When molecules of a low density diatomic gas strike a solid surface both translational energy and the internal energy modes of rotation and vibration will contribute the energy exchange that occurs. Theoretical studies indicate that accomodation coefficient for rotational energy should be less than that for translational energy, and this is confirmed by experimental results. The experimental apparatus described in this paper uses the electron bream fluorescence detector to measure simultaneously both rotational and translational energy accommodation coefficients of room temperature nitrogen reflecting from a solid surface. A bakeable ultra high vacuum system was built to provide a clean vacuum environment for control of the solid surface properties. In addition to being the only known direct measurement of rotational accomodation coefficient the system offers an advantage over some previous methods of translational accommodation measurement in that there are few restrictions on solid surface temperature or composition.