Spectra of a glow discharge in flowing nitrogen

Abstract

The visible spectrum of the positive column of a glow discharge in flowing nitrogen was investigated. There is experimental evidence that the emission spectra depend on the flow velocity and that the changes in the intensity of the first positive and second positive bands of nitrogen are quite different. The results cannot be explained by one-step excitation of electronic levels from the ground state. On the other hand they are consistent with the assumption of stepwise excitation and of atomic recombination to electronically excited molecular levels.