Excessive hydrogen and deuterium Balmer lines broadening in a hollow cathode glow discharges

Abstract

Results of a Doppler spectroscopy study of hydrogen and deuterium Balmer lines in the stainless steel and copper hollow cathode glow discharge, operated in pure hydrogen, deuterium and mixtures of inert gases with hydrogen, are reported. For all gases and gas mixtures plasma observations perpendicular to electric field revealed the excessively large Doppler broadening. By changing mode of glow discharge operation, the Doppler broadened line profiles in helium-hydrogen mixture are recorded parallel to the discharge electric field as well. The excessively broadened part of the Hα line profile is shifted towards blue or red wavelength by changing the direction of electric field vector. The presence of large excessive Balmer lines broadening in pure hydrogen and in its gas mixture with neon as well as shifting of the excessively broadened part of line profile by means of electric field is in contradiction with the resonance transfer model proposed by Mills et al. in several publications, see e.g. [IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci. 31, 338 (2003)]. © EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2005.