Study of argon flowing afterglow with nitrogen injection

In this work, the reaction kinetics in argon flowing afterglow with nitrogen addition was studied by optical emission spectroscopy. The DC flowing post-discharge in pure argon was created in quartz tube at the total gas pressure of 1000 Pa and discharge power of 60 W. The nitrogen was added into the afterglow at the distance of 9 cm behind the active discharge. The optical emission spectra were measured along the flow tube. The argon spectral lines and after nitrogen addition also nitrogen second positive system (SPS) were identified in the spectra. The measurement of spatial dependence of SPS intensity showed a very slow decay of the intensity and the decay rate did not depend on the nitrogen concentration. In order to explain this behavior a kinetic model for reaction in afterglow was developed. This model showed that C (3)Πu state of molecular nitrogen, which is the upper state of SPS emission, is produced by excitation transfer from argon metastables to nitrogen molecules. However, the argon metastables are also produced at Ar2(+) ion recombination with electrons and this limits the decay of argon metastable concentration and it results in very slow decay of SPS intensity.