The application of CW laser collisionally induced fluorescence modelling to determine neon excited-state electron collisional rate coefficients

We describe a method for the determination of rate coefficients for collisional excitation out of the Is states of a noble gas using continuous-wave laser collisionally induced fluorescence (CW LCIF, i.e. fluorescence from an upper level which is not that of the laser transition). The intensity of CW LCIF lines from an upper 2p level that is strongly coupled to an influential Is level is dominated by the electron collisional rate out of that level. By an appropriate choice of LCIF line we fit our recently published theory to experimental observations to determine a set of electron collisional direct Is mixing and 1s-2p excitation rate coefficients. The values of coefficients determined in this way show very good agreement with those which have been calculated using cross section data from the literature with the measured electron temperature. For cases where accurate cross section data are available for the 1s-2p transitions CW LCIF diagnostics should, via these rate coefficients, provide reliable values of the bulk electron temperature.