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Lillicrap, D. C.

Publications and source records attributed to Lillicrap, D. C..

4 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
NASA NTRS1973

Collision quenching effects in nitrogen and helium excited by a 30-keV electron beam

The quenching cross section for the 0-0 first negative band of nitrogen is determined for temperatures between 78 K and 300 K. As the temperature increases above 78 K, the quenching reaches a maximum at approximately 140 K and then decreases as 300 K is approached. At temperatures on the order of 5000 K, quenching is reported to increase with temperature and must therefore reach a minimum at some intermediate temperature between 300 K and 5000 K. By comparison, quenching of the 5016 A helium line increases continuously over the temperature range 78 K to 300 K.

Lillicrap, D. C.↗
NASA NTRS1971

Rotational temperature determination in flowing nitrogen using an electron beam

The measurement of rotational temperature by the electron-beam fluorescence technique is investigated for temperatures between 78 K and 300 K by using the 0-0 band of the nitrogen first negative system. Existing methods for calculating the rotational temperature from electron-beam spectra result in values which are higher than the true temperature and the error increases with density and electron-beam current. The errors are believed to arise through neglect of the effects of secondary electrons. Excitation by low-energy secondary electrons can increase the population of the sparsely populated rotational ground states at the expense of the abundantly populated states. This secondary excitation is proposed as the cause of the error in the calculated rotational temperature and a theoretical study determines that the density and beam current govern the excitation rate. Rotational-temperature measurements are made in a flowing stream of nitrogen at a known temperature for a range of densities and beam currents.

Lillicrap, D. C.↗