Argon ion and neutral metastable levels destruction in a magnetically enhanced Inductively coupled plasma reactor
Résumé
This paper deals with pure argon plasma studied in a magnetically enhanced inductively coupled reactor. Laser induced fluorescence technique was performed with an optical parametric oscillator laser on the 3d 4 F 7/2 and 3d 2 G 9/2 Ar + metastable levels and on the (2P 3/2 0)4s 2 neutral metastable state to determine their relative densities. Langmuir probe was used as a complementary diagnostic to measure the electron energy distribution functions. When increasing the confinement magnetic field, the metastable state density collapses for all cited levels, by contrast with n e which is continuously growing. Calculations were carried out for neutral argon to explain this behaviour. The results show that the metastable population is depleted by electron-impact excitation and ionization, these loss processes becoming dominant compared to the metastable state creation term.
Origine : Fichiers éditeurs autorisés sur une archive ouverte
Loading...