Abstract

The existence of sputtered electronically excited atoms and molecules is a well known fact and has been studied for quite some time. Nonetheless, up to this point a deeper understanding of excitation processes is lacking. In addition, even more puzzels have been created when first measurements by Doppler-Shift-Laser-Fluorescence-Spectroscopy (DSLFS) of the energy distribution of sputtered excited metastable atoms^[1-3] showed results contradicting those theories^[4,5] which had been proposed based on Light-versus-Distance (LvD)^[6,7] and Line-Profile Studies^[8,9] of the emitted light of sputtered short-lived excited atoms.

© 1987 Optical Society of America