Optical characteristics of an afterglow extracted from an inductively coupled plasma.

An inductively coupled plasma is extracted into a quartz vacuum chamber through an orifice to observe optical characteristics of the extracted afterglow. The Mach disk, the barrel shock and the zone of silence, which are familiar in supersonic molecular beam experiments with neutral gases, are clearly observed. Axial profiles of the emission of various lines are measured with a photodiode array spectrometer. Intensities of ionic lines as well as atomic lines are stronger at the Mach disk than in the zone of silence. The location of the Mach disk with varying chamber presure is in conformity with an experimental equation obtained in supersonic molecular beam experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]