[Study of plasma temperature measurements for oxygen discharge]

A radio-frequency discharge setup was constructed by two shell-shaped copper electrodes and a 30 cm long pyrex glass tube (i. d. = 1.65 cm) to examine the gas temperature of oxygen plasma in electric discharge oxygen iodine laser. The discharge was supplied by a 500 watt, 13.56 MHz radio-frequency power. The gas pressure in the discharge cavity was 1 330 Pa. The temperature of oxygen discharge plasma was measured by using the P branch of O2 (b, v = 0) rotational emission spectrum. Two methods were used to deduce the oxygen gas temperature. They are Boltzman plotting method and computer simulating spectrum method, respectively. Gauss fitting method was used to distinguish spectrum peaks for lower resolution spectrum. The spectrum peak area was used to characterize the optical emission intensity. The gas temperature of oxygen discharge plasma was obtained by Boltzmann plotting method. Alternatively, the optical emission spectrum was simulated by computer modeling with spectrometer slit function which was obtained by He-Ne laser. Consequently, the gas temperature of oxygen plasma was obtained by comparing the computer simulating spectrum and the experimentally observed spectrum according to the least square fitting rule. The measurement results with the two methods agree well. It was concluded that the simple optical technique can be used conveniently in the temperature diagnostics of oxygen radio-frequency discharge plasma.