Electron-excitation Temperature with the Relative Optical-spectrumIntensity in an Atmospheric-pressure Ar-plasma Jet

An electron-excited temperature ($T_{ex}$) is not determined by the Boltzmann plots only with the spectral data of $4p{\rightarrow}4s$ in an Ar-plasma jet operated with a low frequency of several tens of kHz and the low voltage of a few kV, while $T_{ex}$ can be obtained at least with the presence of a high energy-level transition ($5p{\rightarrow}4s$) in the high-voltage operation of 8 kV. The optical intensities of most spectra that are measured according to the voltage and the measuring position of the plasma column increase or decay exponentially at the same rate as that of the intensity variation; therefore, the excitation temperature is estimated by comparing the relative optical-intensity to that of a high voltage. In the low-voltage range of an Ar-jet operation, the electron-excitation temperature is estimated as being from 0.61 eV to 0.67 eV, and the corresponding radical density of the Ar-4p state is in the order of $10^{10}{\sim}10^{11}cm^{-3}$. The variation of the excitation temperature is almost linear in relation to the operation voltage and the position of the plasma plume, meaning that the variation rates of the electron-excitation temperature are 0.03 eV/kV for the voltage and 0.075 eV/cm along the plasma plume.