[Electron excitation temperature of argon dielectric barrier discharge at atmospheric pressure]

The electron excitation temperature was measured by the intensity ratio of two spectral lines in argon dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) at atmospheric pressure. The spectral range is from 690 to 800 nm. It is shown that all of the spectral lines are attributed to neutral Ar atoms. The spectral line 763.51 nm (2P(6)-->1S(5)) and 772.42 nm (2P(2)-->1S(3)) are chosen to estimate the electron excitation temperature. The experimental results show that the electron excitation temperature is in the range of 0.1-0.5 eV. The electron excitation temperature increases with increasing applied voltage, but decreases with increasing gas flow rate. The electron excitation temperature in flowing Ar gas discharge is much different from that in static Ar gas discharge. The result is of great importance to industrial application of DBD.