On the excitation temperature of pulsed plasma produced from washer plasma gun in a compact plasma system

Abstract

The washer plasma gun is widely used to produce pulsed plasma and has various applications in plasma physics. A washer plasma gun and a Guillemin-E type pulse forming network are designed and fabricated in the laboratory to produce pulsed argon plasma in the Compact Plasma System. The spectroscopic signals of pulsed plasma are taken through toughened float glass at a distance of about 0.3 m from the plasma gun by a USB4000 digital spectrometer. Assuming the gun plasma is in Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium, Boltzmann plot method and the line ratio method are used to measure the excitation/electron temperature of pulsed plasma with different base pressure varying from 0.2 mbar to 1 mbar. The excitation/electron temperature of the plasma increases slightly with increasing base pressure within the range of 0.2 mbar to 0.8 mbar and then decreases slightly at a pressure of 1 mbar. Both methods produce almost similar results in temperature measurement, but the Boltzmann Plot method is most accurate than line ratio method and widely used method to obtain the excitation/electron temperature of plasma in Local Thermodynamic equilibrium condition.