Excitation of NII Lines from Dissociation of N2 and NO by Electron Collision

This report, which is the first in a series of studies of dissociative-excitation processes of electron-molecule collisions, describes the results of the measurement of the energy dependence of the dissociative- ionization cross sections for the excitation of the NII states triplet F and singlet D by electron impact on both N2 and NO. The ionized atomic nitrogen NII lines at 3995.0 and 5016.4A were produced. The dependence of the optical radiative intensity on electron beam energy over the range of 4 to 20 keV was used to determine the relative optical dissociative excitation cross sections of these two radiating NII levels. The relative cross sections were normalized to the known cross-section value of the band 0,0 of the N2 First Negative System, and the results are analyzed using the Bethe-Born approximation.