Electron kinetics of the e-beam pumped Ar–Xe laser

Abstract

Extensive electron collision data for Ar and Xe are assembled and employed to study the e-beam deposition in this noble gas mixture for application to the Ar–Xe laser. Nineteen states of Xe and thirteen of Ar are used for the atomic model. The electron energy distribution function is calculated from the Boltzmann equation using atomic cross sections for excitations from the ground states computed from atomic physics codes. The resulting electron distribution is then used to investigate the electron temperature, energy per electron–ion pair, ionization rates and excitation-to-ionization ratios for both species as a function of three parameters: the Xe mole fraction, the fractional ionization, and the power deposition per Ar atom. While the Ar ionization and excitation are fairly insensitive to these parameters, the rates for Xe, especially total excitation-to-ionization ratio, can vary with all three. Cross sections for excited to excited transitions among all the considered upper states in Xe are also calculated and transition rates, fitted to an Arrhenius form, are presented in tabular form. The assembled atomic data and calculated rates are useful for further detailed electron kinetics modelling of the Ar–Xe laser.