Two-dimensional images of radiative and metastable excited state radial profiles for an inductively coupled plasma in argon

Inductively coupled plasma (ICP) was shown to be characterized by a substantial degree of stepwise excitation due to a large density of metastable atoms and an even larger population of electrons. The kinetics of metastables strongly affects the structure of the discharge and we have applied laser absorption spectroscopy to establish the density profile of argon metastables Ar(1s₅) in a single turn coil geometry. At the same time the radial profiles of the radiative Ar(3p₅) state obtained by using a computer-aided tomography are significantly different indicating the effect of electron induced quenching and stepwise processes in kinetics of the two states.