NONEQUILIBRIUM ELECTRONIC AND VIBRATIONAL KINETICS IN H-2-N-2 AND H-2 DISCHARGES

In the first section of this paper, the results from a systematic theoretical study describing the electron kinetics and the heavy particle kinetics of H-2 in glow discharges through H-2-N-2 mixtures are presented. The results show that the collisional interactions between the vibronic states of H-2, N-2 are highly nonlinear, and that they strongly affect the dissociation, ionization, gas heating, discharge impedance and power loading. It is shown that at low discharge currents (< 80 mA), medium gas pressures (> 1 Torr), and approximate to 10-80%H-2-N-2 gas mixture composition, quenching of the excited electronic states of N-2 by H-2 is the dominant dissociation channel of H-2 in %H-2-%N-2 discharges. The results further demonstrate that the dissociation balance and the electronic/ionization balance in these molecular glow discharges are strongly coupled and that neither can be studied independently of the other. In the second section of this study, a revised kinetic analysis of the formation of atomic H- negative ions in volume sources is presented. A new process for the production of H- is introduced in the analyses. Using data derived from recent experiments, it is shown that the contribution to H- formation from dissociative attachment to the high Rydberg states of H-2 is comparable to (or greater than) that from H-2(X(1) Sigma(g)(+), v). This additional source term for H- production may resolve some of the problems in understanding the H- densities in low-pressure H-2 plasmas.