A Passive Measurement Of Dissociated Atom Densities In Atmospheric Pressure Air Discharge Plasmas Using Vacuum Ultraviolet Self-Absorption Spectroscopy

We demonstrate a method for determining the dissociation degree of atmospheric pressure air discharges by measuring the self-absorption characteristics of vacuum ultraviolet radiation from O and N atoms in the plasma. The atom densities are determined by modeling the amount of radiation trapping present in the discharge, without the use of typical optical absorption diagnostic techniques which require external sources of probing radiation into the experiment. For an 8.0 mm spark discharge between needle electrodes at atmospheric pressure, typical peak O atom densities of 8.5 x 10(17) cm(-3) and peak N atom densities of 9.9 x 10(17) cm(-3) are observed within the first similar to 1.0 mm of plasma near the anode tip by analyzing the OI and NI transitions in the 130.0-132.0 nm band of the vacuum ultraviolet spectrum. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.