Spectroscopic measurement of atomic hydrogen level populations and hydrogen dissociation degree in expanding cascaded arc plasmas

Optical absorption spectroscopy has been applied to measure the absolute population densities of the first excited levels of atomic hydrogen H*(n=2) and argon Ar*(4s) in an expanding cascaded arc plasma in hydrogen-argon mixture. It is demonstrated that the method allows us to determine both H*(n=2) and Ar*(4s) absolute density radial profiles for H/sub 2/ admixtures in Ar ranging from 0.7% to 10% with good accuracy. The measured H*(n=2) densities are in the 10/sup 14/-10/sup 16/ m/sup -3/ range, and Ar*(4s) densities are in the range of 10/sup 15/-10/sup 18/ m/sup -3/. It has been shown, that the density of hydrogen excited atoms H*(n=2) serves as an indicator of the presence of argon ions and hydrogen molecules in the expanding plasma. A kinetic model is used to understand evolution of H*(n=2) density in the expansion, and to estimate the total atomic hydrogen population density and hydrogen dissociation degree in sub- and supersonic regions of the plasma