Microwave discharge excitation of XeO

The authors describe microwave discharge excitation of XeO excimers achieved using a microwave resonant cavity at 2.45 GHz. The green bands between 480-580 nm corresponding to XeO(1S) → XeO(1D) and the ultraviolet bands between 290-320 nm corresponding to XeO(1S) → XeO(3P) were observed with a 1 meter spectrograph coupled to an intensified, optical multichannel analyzer. The TM012 resonant mode of the cavity was used to couple 100 Watts of cw, 2.45 GHz, microwave power to xenon at pressures ranging from 1 to 760 torr. A quartz tube (2.5 cm diameter) placed co-axially with the center of the microwave cavity (l.D. of 17.8 cm, length about 14.5 cm depending upon the pressure) contained the xenon and small impurities of air (2-10 millitorr). The XeO excimer was observed to be produced near the wall of the quartz containment tube and at the nodes of the electric field where the discharge is believed to be at its coolest and at low xenon pressures (2 - 10 Torr)