COMPARISON OF THE SEMICLASSICAL AND MODIFIED SEMIEMPIRICAL METHOD OF SPECTRAL CALCULATION

In recent experiments the capacity has been developed to generate plas mas at high densities. Standard methods used to diagnose plasmas are d ifficult to apply at these conditions, since it is necessary to calcul ate the entire spectrum as there is significant overlap of spectral li nes. However, for most elements, the number of individual spectral lin e profiles calculated using the semiclassical method is very small. We present a method to use an approximate line width formula, coupled wi th an accurate database to generate a large number of line profiles. W e evaluate the accuracy and utility of such an approach by comparison with semiclassical calculations.