Collisional radiative model for Ar-O2 mixture plasma with fully relativistic fine structure cross sections

Abstract

A collisional radiative (C-R) model has been developed to diagnose the rf generated Ar-O2 (0%–5%) mixture plasma at low temperatures. Since in such plasmas the most dominant process is an electron impact excitation process, we considered several electron impact fine structure transitions in an argon atom from its ground as well as excited states. The cross-sections for these transitions have been obtained using the reliable fully relativistic distorted wave theory. Processes which account for the coupling of argon with the oxygen molecules have been further added to the model. We couple our model to the optical spectroscopic measurements reported by Jogi et al. [J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 47, 335206 (2014)]. The plasma parameters, viz. the electron density (ne) and the electron temperature (Te) as a function of O2 concentration have been obtained using thirteen intense emission lines out of 3p54p → 3p54s transitions observed in their spectroscopic measurements. It is found that as the content of O2 in Ar increases from 0%–5%, Te increases in the range 0.85–1.7 eV, while the electron density decreases from 2.76 × 1012–2.34 × 1011 cm−3. The Ar-3p54s (1si) fine-structure level populations at our extracted plasma parameters are found to be in very good agreement with those obtained from the measurements. Furthermore, we have estimated the individual contributions coming from the ground state, 1si manifolds and cascade contributions to the population of the radiating Ar-3p54p (2pi) states as a function of a trace amount of O2. Such information is very useful to understand the importance of various processes occurring in the plasma.