Electron temperature measurement in a surface-wave-produced argon plasma at intermediate pressures

摘要

The main objective of this work is to obtain the electron temperature in an argon surface-wave-produced plasma column at intermediate gas pressures. After proving that argon upper excited states remain in Excitation Saturation Balance, the value of electron temperature along the plasma column has been obtained using a modified Saha equation and a corrected Boltzmann-plot. moreover, the electron energy distribution function has been verified to be nearly Maxwellian in a 0.8-2.8 torr intermediate pressure range.