COOLING OF ELECTRICALLY-EXCITED He2 IN A MICROCAVITY PLASMA JET Rui Su, Thomas J. Houlahan, Jr., and J. Gary Eden University of Illinois June 24, 2016
OVERVIEW He2 in d3Σu+ state (>24 eV, radiative lifetime ~25 ns) generated in microplasma discharge and rotationally cooled in supersonic expansion. 2D spatial-temporal evolutional spectra of dimer emission contain kinetical information during the expansion. Damped harmonic oscillation of the rotational temperature repeatedly observed.
MICROCAVITY PLASMA JET
EXPERIMENTAL ARRANGEMENT
TEMPORAL-SPATIAL HISTORY OF d3Σu+ FLUORESCENCE
INTENSITY PROFILES OF d3Σu+ FLUORESCENCE
TWO-TEMPERATURE FITTING OF d3Σu+ Rotational temperature evolution
OSCILLATION IN MULTIPLE EXPERIMENTS
DAMPED HARMONIC OSCILLATION
DAMPED HARMONIC OSCILLATION Plasma frequency : 5e8 Hz Corresponding electron density : 7e7 cm-3 Varies within one order of magnitude among all datasets. Collisional frequency for momentum transfer or other ‘damping factor’ : 5e7 Hz collisional frequency for helium atoms nu_m = 2.3e9*P(He) (torr 300K) 5e7Hz corresponds to 0.02Torr
CONCLUSIONS For He2 in d3Σu+ state (>24 eV, radiative lifetime ~25 ns), damped oscillation in rotational temperature observed on top of the cooling. A combination of microplasma jet, supersonic expansion, and 2D spectra map enables a tool to study collisional dynamics of highly-excited dimers in motion.