Published February 2007 | Version v1
Journal article

NO formation mechanisms studied by infrared laser absorption in a single low-pressure plasma pulse

  • 1. Laboratoire de Physique et Technologie des Plasmas, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, 91128 Palaiseau Cedex (France)
  • 2. St Petersburg State University, Faculty of Physics, Ulianovskaya 1, 198904 St. Petersburg (Russian Federation)
  • 3. PIIM, Universite de Provence, CNRS, Centre de St Jerome, Case 241, 13397 Marseille Cedex 20 (France)
  • 4. INP-Greifswald, F.-L.-Jahn-Str. 19, 17489 Greifswald (Germany)

Description

The formation of NO molecules during a single plasma pulse in a low-pressure dc discharge is measured using time resolved tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy in the infrared region. The pulse duration ranges from 280 μs to 16 ms and the pulse current ranges from 20 to 80 mA. The gas pressure is 133 Pa. Experimental results show that NO density is about proportional to the product of the pulse current times the pulse duration. NO formation mechanisms are discussed. We show that reaction of oxygen atoms with vibrationally excited nitrogen molecules (N2(X, v > 12) + O) does not impact the NO concentration. Numerical computation of a simplified kinetics taking into account excited metastable state N2(A) for the NO formation shows good agreement

Additional details

Identifiers

DOI
10.1088/0963-0252/16/1/S12;
PII
S0963-0252(07)31325-X;

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Plasma Sources Science and Technology
Journal Volume
16
Journal Issue
1
Journal Page Range
p. S107-S114
ISSN
0963-0252

Conference

Title
18. European sectional conference on atomic and molecular physics of ionized gases
Dates
12-16 Jul 2006
Place
Lecce (Italy)