Plasma chemistry of CO2 –N2 –He discharges

Abstract

Analysis of plasma‐chemical phenomena occurring in electrically excited mixtures of CO₂, N₂, and He has shown that the principal dissociation products CO and O accumulate to significant levels in approximately 10⁻⁴ sec, a time less than typical fluid residence times in convection lasers. In addition, numerous secondary minority species are produced on the same time scale, reaching concentrations significantly in excess of the charge particle densities. The dominant ionic species are found to be directly related to these discharge‐generated minority species. These investigations have shown that negative ion concentrations can become comparable to the electron concentration for typical laser discharge conditions.