Spectroscopic diagnostics of low-temperature plasma and gas discharge: spectral line shapes and interaction with surfaces

Planned activities within Project will be carried out in several directions but always with intention to develop or improve Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) plasma diagnostic. The emphasis will be on the use of spectral line shapes and line intensities for diagnostics of gas discharges and low-temperature plasma parameters like electron density, electron temperature, heavy particles temperature, cathode sheath parameters and parameters of elementary processes relevant for gas discharge diagnostics. The attention will be devoted to the study of Stark broadening parameters for theory testing and diagnostic purposes. In addition to non-hydrogenic line shapes, the atomic probabilities will be determined in cases whenever data are required. For planned activities it is necessary to build new discharges and plasma sources or to improve already available devices. The region of spectra observation will be extended from standard (UV, VIS and NIR) to vacuum ultraviolet. The absorption spectroscopy technique with tunable diode laser is planned to be used for new OES results testing. It is expected that results of this Project improve OES diagnostics of low temperature plasmas and gas discharges. This is in particular related to electron density, gas temperature and plasma sheath phenomena, which are of importance for control of plasma technologies and for construction of various gas discharges of importance for analytical applications, environmental control and nanotechnologies.