Emission Characteristics of Ca and Mg Atoms in Gas Plasma Induced by the Bombardment of Transversely Excited Atmospheric CO2Laser at 1 atm

To study the mechanism of atomic excitation in gas plasma, a transversely excited atmospheric pressure (TEA) CO2laser (750 mJ, 200 ns) was focused on a metal subtarget through a hole (2 mm in diameter) produced in a glass slide sample (1.5 mm in thickness); the glass slide sample was placed in close contact with a nickel metal plate, which functions as the metal subtarget. It was demonstrated that a strong gas plasma can be induced in various gases including He, N2, and CO2and that plasma can be employed as the excitation source for spectrochemical analysis. It has been proved that, in He gas plasma, strong Ca ionic emissions (Ca II 393.3 nm and Ca II 373.7 nm) with a long lifetime can be observed regardless of excitation energy. On the other hand, in N2and CO2gases, the emissions are very weak and have a short lifetime. We assumed that, in He gas plasma, He metastable atoms play significant role in excitation. In the case of the Ca atom, the double ionization of Ca (Ca2+) is directly induced when a Ca atom collides with He metastable atoms through the Penning effect. The ion produced then recombines with an electron to produce an ionic excitation state, from which ionic emission is induced. In neutral Ca and Mg emissions, unique emission characteristics were observed in the He gas plasma case, namely, the triplet state is the main product and the singlet state is a minor product. This result can be explained by our proposed model.