Abstract
A summary of the experimental observations of the optical emission from the Gaseous Electronics Conference (GEC) rf Reference Cell plasma will be discussed. Spatially and temporally resolved results are provided for various reference and non-reference conditions, including etching type plasmas. These measurements provide a detailed description of the temporal evolution of optical emission from different excited atomic states within different atomic and ionic species, as well as their radial and axial distributions. Some of the measurements have been placed on a absolute radiometric scale to provide comparisons to model calculations. Spectral line profile measurements are also presented to provide some insight into the multi-component particle velocities present in such plasmas.