Laser-rf creation and diagnostics of seeded atmospheric pressure air and nitrogen plasmas

A laser initiation and radio frequency (rf) sustainment technique has been developed and improved from our previous work to create and sustain large-volume, high-pressure air and nitrogen plasmas. This technique utilizes a laser-initiated, 15 mTorr partial pressure tetrakis (dimethylamino) ethylene seed plasma with a 75 Torr background gas pressure to achieve high-pressure air/nitrogen plasma breakdown and reduce the rf power requirement needed to sustain the plasma. Upon the laser plasma initiation, the chamber pressure is raised to 760 Torr in 0.5 s through a pulsed gas valve, and the end of the chamber is subsequently opened to the ambient air. The atmospheric-pressure plasma is then maintained with the 13.56 MHz rf power. Using this technique, large-volume (1000 cm3), high electron density (on the order of 1011–12 cm−3), 760 Torr air and nitrogen plasmas have been created while rf power reflection is minimized during the entire plasma pulse utilizing a dynamic matching method. This plasma can project far away from the antenna region (30 cm), and the rf power budget is 5 W/cm3. Temporal evolution of the plasma electron density and total electron-neutral collision frequency during the pulsed plasma is diagnosed using millimeter wave interferometry. Optical emission spectroscopy (OES) aided by SPECAIR, a special OES simulation program for air-constituent plasmas, is used to analyze the radiating species and thermodynamic characteristics of the plasma. Rotational and vibrational temperatures of 4400–4600±100 K are obtained from the emission spectra from the N2(2+) and N2+(1−) transitions by matching the experimental spectrum results with the SPECAIR simulation results. Based on the relation between the electron collision frequency and the neutral density, utilizing millimeter wave interferometry, the electron temperature of the 760 Torr nitrogen plasma is found to be 8700±100 K (0.75±0.1 eV). Therefore, the plasma deviates significantly from local thermal equilibrium.