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Spectroscopic Diagnostics For Supersonic Air Microwave Discharges, James E. Caplinger

Theses and Dissertations

Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) is an increasingly relevant technique in plasma diagnostics due to its inherent non-invasive nature and simple application relative to other popular techniques. In this work, common OES techniques are combined with novel methods, developed here, in an effort to provide comprehensive OES techniques for stationary and supersonic air microwave discharges. To this end, a detailed collisional-radiative model for strong atomic oxygen lines has been developed and used to identify the importance of often overlooked mechanisms including cascade emission and metastable excitation. Using these results, a combined argon actinometry technique was developed which makes use of the …