Electrical characterization of the flowing afterglow of N2 and N2/O2 microwave plasmas at reduced pressure

摘要

A cylindrical Langmuir probe was used to analyze the spatial distribution of the number density of positive ions and electrons as well as the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) in the flowing afterglow of a 6 Torr N2 and N2/O2 plasma sustained by a propagating electromagnetic surface wave in the microwave regime. In pure N2 discharges, ion densities were in the mid 1014 m−3 in the pink afterglow and in the mid 1012 m−3 early in the late afterglow. In both pink and late afterglows, the ion population was much higher than the electron population, indicating non-macroscopically neutral media. The EEDF was close to a Maxwellian with an electron temperature of 0.5 ± 0.1 eV, except in the pink afterglow where the temperature rose to 1.1 ± 0.2 eV. This latter behavior is ascribed to N2 vibration-vibration pumping in the pink afterglow that increases the concentration of high N2 vibrational states and thus rises the electron temperature by vibration-electron collisions. After addition of small amounts of O2 in the nominally pure N2 discharge, the charged particles densities and average electron energy first strongly increased and then decreased with increasing O2 concentration. Based on these data and the evolution of the N2+(B) band emission intensities, it is concluded that a significant change in the positive ion composition of the flowing afterglow occurs, going from N2+ in nominally pure N2 discharges to NO+ after addition of trace amounts of O2 in N2.