Gas-Specific Characteristics of Argon Low-Frequency Atmospheric-Pressure Nonequilibrium Microplasma Jet

摘要

The authors have demonstrated an argon low-frequency microplasma jet and experimentally investigated the gas-specific difference compared with a helium jet, which has been used in many studies. Both argon and helium plasma jets show ambient neutral nitrogen molecule emissions as well as those of carrier gases; however, the emission of nitrogen molecule ions is observed only in the helium plasma jet. This is determined by whether the metastable level of the carrier gas is higher or lower than the ionization potential of the nitrogen molecule. Moreover, for a larger flow rate, the jet length decreased and green emission was observed, which is assigned to O (I) and ArO emissions.