Abstract
For pt. II see abstr. A6932 of 1972. Measurements have been made of the angular and energy distributions of electrons ejected from contaminated metal surfaces due to thermal energy metastable rate gas atom impact. Mechanisms are proposed to explain these observations and also the high values of secondary emission coefficients previously measured. The secondary electron yield was found to be approximately independent of the angle of incidence of the metastable atoms. Reflection coefficients for metastable atoms at contaminated metal and glass surfaces were found to be very small and no ion emission was observed.