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Abstract. Time and spatially resolved absorption measurements of Xe* particle number
densities performed at an X-ray preionized self-sustained XeCl*-laser discharge were used
to investigate the reaction kinetics of such discharges and to test the validity of the
commonly-made assumption that they are fit well by spatially homogeneous numerical
models. It turned out that the Xe* density distribution over the discharge cross section
remains homogeneous for less than 100 ns only. Comparing the experimental results of the
homogeneous discharge phase with zero-dimensional model calculations, we conclude that
induced emission modeled using two excited xenon levels must be taken into account for the
quantitative interpretation of the absorption measurements. For the interpretation of the
Xe 6 s ' - 6p' absorption measurements even a multilevel model will be necessary. Further we
conclude from the relative courses and the absolute values of the Xe* particle number
densities that realistic HC1 kinetics should contain three vibrationally excited levels and
stepwise excitation processes as proposed by Dem'yanov et al. [8].
During the last few years several XeCI* laser models (Fig. 1) in an X-ray preionized XeCl* laser discharge
[1-10] and spectroscopic investigations of excited containing various mixtures of Ne, Xe, and HC1
state population densities [-8, 11-13] of the discharge (Table 1). As a background light source we used a Kr
pumped XeCI* laser have been published. But there ion laser (Coherent CR2000K) pumped cw single-
are some questions which have not yet been answered: mode dye laser (Coherent CR 599-03). We obtained a
- There is no quantitative interpretation of the mea- time resolution of about 2 ns and a spatial resolution
surements by model calculations. transverse to the laser beam of less than 1 mm (Sect. 1).
- As a background light source for the absorption To calculate particle number densities from the optical
experiments pulsed dye lasers were used. Because of depth, the f-values and the line profiles of the tran-
the limited pulse width and the jitter of the synchroni- sitions are to be known (Sect. 2). Induced emission
zation, the time resolution was not good enough to must not be neglected. In Sect. 3 an estimation of
investigate the first rise of the excited state population systematic errors caused by limited temporal and
densities. spatial resolution follows. For the use in model
- Nothing is known about the excited state particle calculations various atomic energy levels are summed
density distribution within the discharge gap. This up to model levels. The assumptions under which this
information is necessary to prove the applicability of has been done with xenon are checked experimentally
zero-dimensional discharge models. (Sect. 5). More-dimensional effects are described in
To gain insight into the reaction kinetics of self- Sect. 4. In Sect. 6 the experimental results are com-
sustained high pressure glow discharges in Ne/Xe/HC1 pared with those of our model calculations. After that
mixtures, we performed end-on absorption measure- the kinetic model of the XeCI* laser discharge is
ments at the xenon 6s-6p and 6s'-6p' transitions established: The importance of a second, higher
74 Th. Hammer and W. B6tticher
5ps zP~tz 13./,5 eV 5p5 2P~s2 12.13eV is 20 ram. The discharge is driven by a peaking-circuit.
nI ' ns'
13/2] It/2] 0/21
ns no 1[ 3 / 2 The load capacitance of 20.5 nF can be charged up to
.&.j.j.j.....0..!. 1 o ! 2
30 kV. The discharge chamber can be filled with total
pressures up to 3 bar. Table 1 gives an overview of the
investigated discharge conditions.
-7- - L Figure 2 shows the set-up of the absorption experi-
-L ~ ment [15]. As a laser dye we used Styryl 9 M (Lambda
11 ---7 .27 ~L .2- .y_ ._7_ _ L _fi_ ..L
Physik) in a solution of propylene carbonate and
-.7- ___7 .2.
tu i 83/*.91 820.86 ethylen glycol. Pumping with 3.6W Kr ion laser
i~I radiation (Coherent CR 2000 K all line red) we ob-
tained more than 30 mW single mode dye laser radi-
- -
L . y ......
82g,2/~ 82339
ation (Coherent CR 599-03) for all transitions under
investigation. Using the 10cm confocal Fabry Perot
interferometer the bandwidth was estimated to be less
than 40 MHz. The optogalvanic effect with a Cu-Xe
hollow cathode discharge was used to tune the dye
Sp6 150 laser to the line centers of the xenon transitions at
Fig. 1. Transitions used for the absorption experiments, vacuum- 823.4nm, 820.2nm, 820.8nm, and 834.9nm vacuum
wavelength given in nm. The levels marked with * and ** are wavelength.
collected to give the model levels Xe* and Xe**, respectively A grating spectrograph, linear dispersion
24 pm/mm, gave the possibility to detune the dye laser
from the line centers of the transitions with 5pro
excited Xenon level for the interpretation of-the precision. This was necessary as most of the absorption
experimentally determined particle densities is shown, measurements were performed at the line wings
as well as the significance of stepwise vibrational because of the large optical depths of the laser dis-
excitation of HC1 introduced by Dem'yanov et al. [7]. charge at the line centers of the transitions. For this
reason the line profiles had to be investigated in more
detail than in previous works [12, 13].
1. Experimental Set-Up Transfering the dye laser and the transmitted
The X-ray preionized XeCI laser discharge used as test radiation by means of optical wave guides (multimode
specimen is described in detail by Stielow et al. [l 4]. Its graded-index fiber, core diameter 50 ~tm) gives high
area given by the preionization is 170 x 10 mm 2, its gap experimental flexibility and reduces the noise of the
Table 1. Parameter range investigated by absorption experiments: load voltages in kV for different gas mixtures
1.0 15, 20, 25, 30 15, 20, 25, 30 15, 20, 25, 30 25 15, 20, 25, 30
2.0 15, 20, 25, 30 25 15, 20, 25, 30 25 15, 20, 25, 30
3.0 20, 25, 30 25 25 20, 25, 30
BSM L
I Kr - Ion -Loser / v 'fill v,-,,.-/A II
M
N~'- - -> ~ XeOI-Loser
Grating SpectrocjrQph
r" . . . . . . .
IM o d e control ~s
I
I
I
I
Fig. 2, Set-up of the absorption experiment. BS: beam spliter; M: mirror; L: lens, f = 10 ram; GF: glass fiber; LS: lens system; UVR: UV-
reflecting mirror; A: aperture, q~< 1 mm; IF: interference filter; OGE: optogalvanic effect with a Cu Xe hollow cathode discharge; PD:
Si Pon photodiode; ac, de amplifier; OS: 275 MHz oscilloscope
Spectroscopic Investigation of the Ionization Kinetics 75
signals. With the lens system L the exit plane of the where r is the optical depth, and
glass fiber is focused into the center of the discharge.
The apertures A (4) < 1 mm) and the interferencefilter IF Nl(t)" {1 - [gl" N2(t)]/[g2" Nl(t)]}
(bandwidth 10 rim) are suppressing the discharge radi- = z(2, 0/[0-21(2) 9L], (2)
ation to less than 2% of the intensity of the incident dye
where Ni and g~ (i=1,2) are the particle number
laser radiation. The optical signal is detected in an
densities and statistical weights of the lower (1) and
electrically screened cabin using a fast Si Pin photo-
upper (2) level. L is the length of the plasma, which is
diode (Hamamatsu S 1722). To get the intensity of the
assumed to be homogeneous.
dye laser beam without absorption, a slow dc amplifier
Equation (2) defines the "effective" particle number
(0-5 kHz) with high input impedance is put parallel to
density, which takes into account that induced emis-
the avantec GDP ac amplifier (50 kHz~00 MHz). Its
sion must not be neglected. The photoabsorption cross
amplification can be adjusted to that of the ac
section O-z1 of the transition is defined by
amplifier. A 275 MHz storage oscilloscope
(HP 1727 A) is used to record the difference signal. e2
With this combination of detector, amplifiers and a21(2) = 4ne.orn~c2 "rc2z"f21 " P21(2), (3)
oscilloscope we get a time resolution of about 2 ns. To
attach the time scales of different signals (i.e. dye laser where 2 o is the wavelength of the unperturbed tran-
absorption, discharge current, discharge voltage and sition, f21 the absorption oscillator strength, and P21(2)
XeCI* laser pulse) to each other we put a very short the normalized line profile of the transition.
electric pulse on every signal (half-width 2 ns). Further While ]:values of the xenon transitions can be
signal processing is done by taking Polaroid photos of found from literature [17-24], partly by combining
the oscillographs and digitizing them with an accuracy life-time measurements with measured and calculated
of 0.05 divisions. Nonlinearities of the oscilloscope branching ratios (Table 2), nothing is known of the line
time scales and distortions of the Polaroid photos are broadening of the near infrared xenon lines in
corrected numerically. Ne/Xe/HC1 mixtures. Thus we determined them with
ol~r experimental set-up by detuning the dye laser to
various wavelengths 2~ off the line center of the
2. Calculation of Particle Number Densities transition and taking the transmission I(2i, t)/Io(2~) of
the discharge, which is reproducible to within a few
Under the given experimental conditions, spontaneous percent for about 100 ns. Because of the large optical
emission of the discharge plasma can be neglected depths of the discharge at the line centers of the
[16]. Thus the particle number densities of excited investigated transitions most of the measurements
xenon atoms can be calculated from the measured were performed outside the pre-ionized volume.
intensities 1(2, 0, lo(2) according to Evaluating the relation
v(2, t) = - In [1(2, 0/lo(2)3, (1) z(2,, t)/v(2, + J = P21(2,)/P21(2,+ 0, (4)
Tab.e 2. f-values of the xenon transitions used for absorption measurements. (a) Theory [17], r length-, v velocity formulation. (b)-(e)
Lifetimes from [18-21], branching ratios from [17, 183. (f)-(h) References [22-24]. The last row gives the mean values and the standard
deviations of the f-values derived from literature.
"Because of the large discrepancy to the other values not included into the mean value
76 Th. Hammer and W. B6tticher
Table 3. Line profile values P~l(fl)in 10S/mused for the evaluation of effectiveparticle number
densities
to the law of error propagation [31] this leads to a The temporal correlation between absorption signals
standard deviation of taken at different locations of the discharge was
achieved by relating them to discharge current signals
s = 0.02/T-(2. (1 - T + T2)) '/2 , (6)
measured simultaneously.
where T is the transmission. Several series have been taken starting from the
The limited time resolution mentioned in Sect. 1 center of the discharge and scanning the probe beam
causes a temporal shift of the absorption signal of 2 ns step by step transverse to the electric field. The results
and an underestimate of the first absorption peak of are presented as lines of constant optical depth (Fig.
3 %. Two other systematic errors arise from the limited 4a-c) in the x - t plane, where x is the distance from the
diameters of dye laser beam and aperture stop: For discharge center and t the time since onset of absorp-
particle density measurements in the outer discharge tion. The most striking features are the narrowing of
regions the particle density gradients lead to an the discharge after the first current minimum and the
underestimate of the optical depths. This effect may be appearance of regions of high optical depth beside the
amplified or reduced by the Schlieren effect, depending main discharge channel during the second current half
on the wavelength of the dye laser radiation relative to wave. While in absorption the optical depth grows
the line center of the transition under investigation, sO with the load voltage, in emission the lateral channels
the contours of the particle density distribution over get less pronounced. One reason for this unexpected
the discharge cross section seem to be more or less behavior may be induced emission, which lowers the
pronounced. A quantitative estimation of this error absorption with growing Xe @[3/2]2 - but constant
cannot be given, because the intensity profile of the dye 6s[3/2] 2 -particle number densities. At later times the
laser radiation at the exit plane of the glass fiber is discharge channel narrows further to a width of
unknown. NeVertheless, one should be careful with the 4-5 mm, which is consistent with emission measure-
interpretation of spatially resolved absorption ments [32] (Fig. 5) and may be due to inhomogeneities
measurements. of the electric field. From these results we conclude that
a comparison of experiment and model calculations
makes sense only for the first current half wave.
4. Multi-dimensional Effects A few absorption measurements were performed in
All measurements described in this section have been the cathode region of the discharge. These experiments
performed with the dye laser tuned to 2 = 823.0 nm in show that the theories which describe the cathode fall
the blue line wing of the 6s[3/2l 2 - 6p[3/2] 2 transition. of low pressure glow discharges are not valid for
12
a 2O 40 60 80 100
t [ns]
~G
300
T=I
-~200
~" 100
-~-- (a)
-~- (b) T=I
m.-J--! -~-- (c}
b 20 ns/div
Fig. 7a, b. Reproducibility of the transmission signals taken
at a 1 mm and b 2 m m distance from the cathode. Dis-
[ i , , , I i = i
charge conditions are the same as in Fig. 6
O0 20 z,O 60 80 100
t[ns]
Fig. 6. Effective particle number densities at different dis-
tances to the cathode: (a) 0.5 nm, (b) 1.0 ram, (c) 3.0 ram. Gas two excited xenon levels Xe* and Xe** using the
mixture Ne/Xe/HC1= 1920/75/5 mbar, U0 =25 kV relations [36]
N* = ~6s, 6s'Ni, N** = Z~6p' 6p,Nj, (7)
transient high pressure glow discharges: From extra-
g* = ~6s, 6s'gl, g** = Z6p,6p'gj (8)
polation of the similarity rules one would expect a
cathode fall thickness of about 10 ~tm; what is observed for the particle densities and statistical weights. These
is a 2 mm thick layer in front of the cathode with definitions are justified if the measured effective par-
different behavior compared with the discharge vol- ticle number densities can be expressed as
x,. ( 1 - ggi.Nj~
j U / -- 8 , . N . . ( 1-
ume iFig. 6). Irreproducibilities of the absorption
,* 9
signals at relatively early times (Fig. 7) confirm the u*/ . (9)
observations of Taylor [33], that the cathode region of
excimer laser discharges may trigger volume insta- So we performed absorption measurements at the
bilities (HC1 depletion instability [-34, 35]). four transitions indicated in Fig. 1 using a gas mixture
of Ne/Xe/HC1 = 1920/75/5 mbar. For the 6 s - 6p tran-
sitions this relation is valid within the error limits, but
5. Relations of the Observed Effective Particle Number for the 6s'-6p' transitions there are serious discrep-
Densities to the Model Level Populations ancies (Fig. 8): compared with the 6s[3/211 level, the
Restricted by the published excitation and ionization 6s'E1/211 level is underpopulated by a factor of 10,
cross sections in our model calculations we defined the while the 6s'[1/2]o level is overpopulated by a factor
Spectroscopic Investigation of the Ionization Kinetics 79
101
- - model model --- model
5 --D-- ~ -- experiment -- experiment
- - ~ - experiment
3 -~_.t o 1 bor ~ . o 1 bar /
2
;2b r , / ' 2 + 2bor /
v 3bor M
100
5 %
o
3
z
2
1(/1 1
~'E 5
~'-'3
o
~2
z 10-2
~ 50
' ' 100
' ' I; 0 ~ ' 25
I ' 5.0
' ' 75'
a pxe[m bar] b pHcj[mbar]
2 i,?
/
/ 5 mbar, the xenon partial pressure for b was 75 mbar. In
addition to the statistical errors (6) for the 2-bar condition the
systematic errors resulting from line profile and f-value are
shown (large error bars)
3O 40 50
a t[ns]
10~
7. Justification of the Reaction Kinetic Model
I
;;/i
'E
o-- 3 number densities to the model assumptions for xenon
o excitation and HC1 vibrational excitation will be
A2
z 102
examined.
Figure 12 shows various electron collision exci-
5 tation cross sections of xenon: The curves labeled (a)
3
(b), and (c) are total excitation cross sections [37-39],
2
curve (d) gives a sum of 6p and 6p' excitation cross
153
sections containing cascade contributions from higher
level excitation [401 and curve (f) stands for metastable
excitation put on an absolute scale by Blagoev et al.
[41] using rate coefficients for superelastic electron
Lo 50 60 70 80 90
metastable collisions determined from probe measure-
b tins] ments in afterglow discharges. As the most reliable one
Fig. 10a, b. Effective particle number densities of the 6s[3/2]z we consider the cross sections of Hayashi [39] These
-6p[3/212 transition during the late avalanche phase of the were evaluated from a Boltzmann analysis of swarm
discharge. The detunings of the dye laser from the line center experiments using the most recent values for the
of the transition were 0.0nm (earliest phase), -0.04nm m o m e n t u m transfer cross sections and taking into
(medium range) and -0.4nm (fully developed discharge).
The error bars show the standard deviations according to (6). account resonance structures in the threshold region of
Discharge conditions a Ne/Xe/HCl=945/50/5mbar, Uo the excitation cross sections. Subtracting the sum of 6p
= 30 kV, b Ne/Xe/HCI= 1845/150/5 mbar, Uo = 15 kV and 6p' excitation cross sections (Xe**) we got a cross
Spectroscopic Investigation of the Ionization Kinetics 81
[ --(a} cross sections [42, 43] even large errors in the partition
.... (b)
........ (el of the total excitation cross section play a m i n o r role.
i/ //I/// J
....... (d) This can be seen from Fig. 14, where the results of four
' . . . . . . . . (e)
kO~ )
/'
/
/I
/ I
/ /I
,/ /
I' / - / I " ~ ----7/- -
./" /
/!/" different xenon excitation schemes (Fig. 13) are com-
pared: Discharge voltage and current are determined
only by the total excitation rate. In contrast to this, the
m e a s u r e d effective particle n u m b e r densities can be
E reproduced only if two excited m o d e l levels and two
.j ,/ / ../
step excitation of the higher level are t a k e n into
o i I /I i'I
ij ii / / account.
i
J
/
I // i"
/ In the literature on XeCI* laser modeling, HC1
O.E
9" I i /" vibrational excitation and dissociative a t t a c h m e n t of
:/ / ./" / ./"
/ / .// i electrons to HC1 is treated in various different m a n n e r s
(Table 4). T o verify the HC1 kinetics p r o p o s e d by
~i~\i / I S " 7 / j "
,'x~L~ .~:"- D e m ' y a n o v et al. [8] we p e r f o r m e d m o d e l calculations
,, J / ..~" using the following assumptions:
S, ,./,
9 ~0 , ,
II
E [eVl
,
I2
, , II3 |~ ' (I) Vibrational excitation and dissociative attach-
m e n t were treated using energy dependent electron
Fig. 12. Electron collision excitation cross sections of XeI. a collision cross sections. Following D e m ' y a n o v et al.
Schaper and Scheibner [37], b Specht et al. [38], c Hayashi [8], we assumed a l _ 2 = 2 . a o _ l and a 2 _ 3 = 3 . a o _ 1
[39], d 6p- and 6p'-excitation combining the values of
for the excitation cross sections. Reducing the n u m b e r
Felt'san and Zapesochnyi [40] with branching ratios from
[17], e 6s- and 6s'-excitation (difference of the cross sections of vibrational levels t a k e n into account affects the
c and d), f metastable excitation [41] discharge voltage as well as the effective particle
n u m b e r densities of excited x e n o n a t o m s (Fig. 15).
(II) In Fig. 16a-c we c o m p a r e four different m e t h o d s
Xe B Xe I~ Xe IV Xe of modeling electron-HC1 collision reactions: (a) The
m o d e l described in (I) using vibrational excitation up
to v = 3, (b) the complete reaction scheme of (I), but
using rate coefficients for HC1 vibrational excitation
and dissociative a t t a c h m e n t to HC1. These rate coeffi-
Xe + Xe + Xe + Xe
cients as functions of the m e a n electron energy were
Fig. 13. Investigated reaction schemes for the electron colli- determined from the a b o v e - m e n t i o n e d cross sections
sion excitation and ionization of XeI assuming the E D F to be Maxwellian, (c) an H C I m o d e l
restricted to v = 0 and v = i using energy dependent
section for lower level excitation (e), which was as- excitation cross sections but rate constants for dis-
signed to the 6s and 6s' states (Xe*). Indeed this is only sociative a t t a c h m e n t (k,tt(v = 0) = 2.5 x 10-16 m3/s,
a rough estimation, but because of the high values of the k, t t ( v = l ) = l . 1 x 1 0 - t 4 m 3 / s ) [44], (d) the same reac-
X e * - X e * * excitation and Xe* and Xe** ionization tion scheme as in (c) but using rate constants for
Table 4. Treatment of e-HC1 collision reactions in XeCI* laser modeling (v = vibrational quantum number of the HC1 molecule,
RCONST = rate constant, RC'(E/N)= E/N dependent rate coefficient, QS(e)= energy dependent cross section, + = included, - --not
included)
Vibrational 1 2 1 3 1 3
levels up to RCONST QS(e) RCONST QS(s) QS(s) QS(~)
vibrational
excitation - ? - + + +
superelastic
collisions - - - + _ +
stepwise
excitation RCONST v=0: QS(~) RC(E/N) QS(~) v=0: QS(~) QS(e)
dissociative v= 1, 2: RC v= 1, 2: RC
attachment
82 Th. Hammer and W. B6tticher
20 20
o-u(t}+- I(t) P V=3
........ V = 2
.... V=I
10
g
H
z
i I . . . . I r i , , i ,
'",,X LW:/
..-/ ",,,
J i , , , i , , . " ' ~ - - - - J . i .
z,O 60 80 100 120 1AO 160 020 60 80 100 120 ' 1~0' ' ' 160
b t[ns] b t[ns]
Fig. 14a, b. Discharge voltage U and current ! a and Fig. 15a, b. Discharge voltage U a and effective particle
effective particle number densities of the 6s[3/2]a-6p[3/212 number densities of the 6s[3/2]~-6p[3/2] 2 transition b
transition b calculated using the reaction schemes shown in calculated changing the number of HC1 vibrational levels
Fig. 13. Ne/Xe/HC1 = 1920/75/5 mbar, Uo = 25 kV taken into account (v gives the upper limit of the vibrational
quantum number respectively). Discharge conditions are the
same as in Fig. 14
- - (<~l
20 ....... (b)
.... (c) -- (a) . 2
..... (d) ....... (b} . 2
.... (c)
.... (d)
..-0-- exp.-0.55
P'd,:
,F
10 ,
t,
8'
~-.,"..
It.' ",
",",,,'\
\'\ i
l\ i;'." " ""\
if;" f~. ",. ",\ 13_
g--,-
~". ...... --.,,
/7. /
.7: !
\ \ ..'..
i
-
"'"',
"\',
"& ~t:
;7: "'-..
AO 60 80 100
t[ns]
t20 lZ,O 160 0/~0
, , , i .
60 80 ~00
t[nsl
120
5 140 160
-- (a)
(b)
(c) ,...\ ",,\
{d) / ,,.
exp. / -,,,,
/ "% ...,#!i \,, \
: 3 \
; / :. x.
/ '\ \
"'.....
'E
"oo_
}\. \' , , L. B
excited xenon excitation and ionization cross sections discharge as long as the xenon total excitation rate
we collected the 6s and 6s' levels and the 6p and 6p' remains constant, for HC1 stepwise vibrational excit-
levels to give Xe* and Xe**, respectively. Although the ation has to be taken into account. Calculations like
experimental results show that this doesn't describe the those of Domcke and Mfindel [45] for HC1 v = 0 - n
effective particle number densities of the 6s'-6p' excitation should be performed to justify the estimated
transitions in a sufficient way, the agreement with v = n - n + l excitation cross sections. On the other
effective particle number densities determined for hand time resolved absorption measurements of the
6s-6p transitions justifies the model as a whole. HCI(v) population densities could show the impor-
Reliable cross sections for the excitation and ioniza- tance of stepwise excitation processes directly.
tion of individual energy levels are needed to extend By scanning the dye laser beam over the discharge
the kinetic model of the xenon atom. For the interpret- cross section with a spatial resolution of better than
ation of spectroscopic measurements of other excited- 1 mm it could be shown that discharge homogeneity
state population densities (i.e. Ne*, Xe +*, CI*) further and constant cross section are given only for some ten
detailed information on excitation and ionization nanoseconds. Even if one neglects the fact that the
cross sections is necessary. discharge behavior in the cathode region differs from
While details of the xenon excitation and ioniza- that in the volume, these effects restrict the comparison
tion kinetics do not influence the impedance of the of model and experiment to the first current half wave.
84 Th. Hammer and W. B6tticher
To describe these phenomena, multi-dimensional dis- 11. D.C. Hogan, A.J. Kearsley, C.E. Webb, R. Bruzzese: J. Phys.
charge models are desirable. Because the spatial distri- (France) 45, 1449-1456 (1984)
12. V.E. Peet, A.B. Treshchalov: Sov. J. Quant. Electron. 15,
bution of electrons is expected to differ significant
1613-1619 (1985)
from that of excited xenon atoms, time and spatially 13. A.B. Treshchalov, V.E. Peet, V.T. Mikelsoo: IEEE J. Quant.
resolved measurements of the electron density should Electron. 22, 51-57 (1986)
give additional information. 14. G. Stielow, Th. Hammer, W. B6tticher: Appl. Phys. B47,
The way in which the discharge becomes inhomo- 333-342 (1988)
geneous and narrower may be typical for our experi- 15. G. Ernst: Dissertation, Universit~it Hannover (Hannover
1982)
ment. However, from the observations of other re-
16. H.R. Griem: Plasma Spectroscopy, 1st edn. (McGraw-Hill,
search groups discharge constriction can be concluded New York 1964) pp. 172-176
too [13, 34]. The works of Coutts and Webb [34] and 17. M. Aymar, M. Coulombe: At. Data Nucl. Data Tables 21,
Osborne and Hutchinson [-35] indicate that HC1 53%566 (1978)
depletion is responsible for this constriction as well as 18. H. Horiguchi, R.S.F. Chang, D.W. Setser: J. Chem. Phys. 75,
for the filamentation of the discharge at later stages. 1207-1218 (1981)
Inhomogeneities of the electric field and the pre- 19. Gen Inoue, J.K. Ku, D.W. Setser: J. Chem. Phys. 81,
5760-5774 (1984)
ionization may initiate the instability observed in our 20. N. B6wering, M.R. Bruce, J.W. Keto: J. Chem. Phys. 84,
experiments. 715-726 (1986)
In summary we can state that spectroscopic par- 21. M.B. Gorny, S.A. Kazantsev, B.G. Matisov, N.T. Polez-
ticle density measurements, in combination with a haeus: Z. Phys. A322, 25-36 (1985)
discharge model including realistic multilevel struc- 22. J. Sabbagh, N. Sadeghi: JQSRT 17, 297-301 (1977)
tures of the atom or molecule under investigation, 23. U. Lehnert: Diploma Thesis, Universitfit Hannover (Han-
hover 1985)
provides a powerful tool for understanding the reac- 24. K.-P. Nick, V. Helbig: Phys. Scr. (Sweden) 32, 111-114 (1985)
tion kinetics of transient glow discharges. Spatially 25. J. Szudy, W.E. Baylis: JQSRT 15, 641 668 (1975)
resolved measurements yield information on discharge 26. J. Szudy, W.E. Baylis: JQSRT 17, 681-684 (1977)
homogeneity and stability. 27. A. Royer: SpectralLine Shapes, Vol. 1, ed. by B. Wende. Proc.
5th Int. Conf. Berlin West (1980) (de Gruyter, Berlin, New
Acknowledgements. This work was supported by the Deutsche York 1981) pp. 651-663
Forschungsgemeinschaft (Bo 496/11-1, 2 and 3). We thank 28. Th. Hammer: Dissertation Universit~it Hannover (Hannover
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EMG50. We are especially grateful to F. Rebentrost, who 29. W.E. Ernst, B.-H. Mfiller, Th. Zaengel: Physica 93C,
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PLASKIN, which was made freely available to us by the Max- 30. D.W. Jones, K. Musiol, W.L. Wiese: In Spectral Line Shapes,
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model H.-H. Hehmsoth and D. Backhaus were of great help. Colorado (1982) (de Gruyter, Berlin, New York 1983)
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