Spectroscopic characterization of rovibrational temperatures in atmospheric pressure He/CH4 plasmas

Atmospheric pressure of helium He and methane CH4 mixture discharge characteristics are investigated using emission spectroscopic methods. Plasmas are produced in a radio frequency capacitively coupled device at atmospheric pressure in the ambient air. Without the CH4 gas introduced in the plasma, the emission spectrum exhibits typical helium discharge characteristics showing helium atomic lines with nitrogen molecular bands and oxygen atomic lines resulting from air impurities. Addition of a small amount 1% of CH4 to the supplied He results in the emission of CN B2 +-X2 +: violet system and CH A2 -X2 : 430 nm system molecular bands. Analyzing the CN and CH diatomic molecular emission spectra, the vibrational temperature Tvib and rotational temperature Trot are simultaneously obtained. As input power levels are raised from 20 W to 200 W, Tvib and Trot are increased from 4230 K to 6310 K and from 340 K to 500 K, respectively. On the contrary, increasing the CH4 amount brings about the decrease of both temperatures because CH4 is harder to ionize than He. The emission intensities of CN and CH radicals, which are important in plasma processing, are also changed along with the temperature variation. From the results, the atmospheric pressure plasma shows strong nonequilibrium discharge properties, which may be effectively utilized for thermal damage free material treatments. © 2008 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.3002397