Determination of NO densities in a surface dielectric barrier discharge using optical emission spectroscopy

Abstract

A new computationally assisted diagnostic to measure NO densities in atmospheric-pressure microplasmas by Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) is developed and validated against absorption spectroscopy in a volume Dielectric Barrier Discharge (DBD). The OES method is then applied to a twin surface DBD operated in N 2 to measure the NO density as a function of the O 2 admixture (0.1%- 1%). The underlying rate equation model reveals that NO (A 2 ς +) is primarily excited by reactions of the ground state NO (X 2 Π) with metastables N 2 (A 3 ς u +).