Electron Collisions in Neon Plasma

Abstract

The momentum transfer collision frequencies of electrons with neon ions and neutral atoms were measured in a decaying neon plasma over the temperature range from 200 to 600°K. The temperature-density dependence of the electron-ion collision frequency is determined to be ${\nu }_{\mathrm{ei}}=3.6\mathrm{}\frac{n}{{T_e}^{\frac{3}{2}}}\ln \frac{2.0\times {10}^4{T_e}^{\frac{3}{2}}}{n^{\frac{1}{2}}}.$ The energy dependence of the momentum transfer cross sections of electrons with neon atoms is best represented by $Q_{m_1}\mathrm{}\left(u\right)=2.55\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-16\mathrm{}}{u}^{\frac{1}{2}}$ and $Q_{m_2}\mathrm{}\left(u\right)=1.07\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-17\mathrm{}}+2.17\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-16\mathrm{}}{u}^{\frac{1}{2}}$ ${\mathrm{cm}}^2$ for one-and two-term approximations, where $u$ is the electron energy in electron volts.