A Microwave Plasma Discharge in Rare Gases as a VUV Source for Planetary Atmospheric Photochemistry

Sarah Tigrine (1, 2) , Nathalie Carrasco (3, 1) , Ludovic Vettier (4) , Guy Cernogora (1)

1 PLANETO - LATMOS
2 SSOLEIL - Synchrotron SOLEIL
3 IUF - Institut Universitaire de France
4 LATMOS - Laboratoire Atmosphères, Milieux, Observations Spatiales

The aim of this work is to show that micro-wave discharges in rare gases, can be an efficient windowless VUV photon source for planetary atmospheric photochemistry experiments. In this context, we perform a microwave discharge (surfatron) in a neon gas flow. We characterize the VUV photon flux emitted in different conditions, when working in the mbar pressure range, and compare it to synchrotron VUV fluxes also used for similar applications.

Domains: Physics [physics]; Physics [physics]; Plasma Physics [physics.plasm-ph]; Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysic [astro-ph.IM]; Sciences of the Universe [physics]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]; Earth and Planetary Astrophysics [astro-ph.EP]

Sarah Tigrine, Nathalie Carrasco, Ludovic Vettier, Guy Cernogora. A Microwave Plasma Discharge in Rare Gases as a VUV Source for Planetary Atmospheric Photochemistry. VUVX2016, the 39th International conference on Vacuum Ultraviolet and X-ray Physics, Jul 2016, Zürich, Switzerland. , 2016. ⟨insu-01348919⟩