Eur. Phys. J. D (2014) 68: 334
https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2014-50182-7

Regular Article

The study of a homogeneous column of argon plasma at a pressure of 0.5 torr, generated by means of the Beenakker’s cavity

¹ Topchiev Institute of Petrochemical Synthesis RAS, Leninsky Prospect 29, 199991 Moscow, Russia
² Institute of Physics, University of Belgrade, 11081 Belgrade, P.O. Box 68, Serbia
³ Faculty of Physics, University of Belgrade, 11001 Belgrade, P.O. Box 368, Serbia

^a e-mail: lebedev@ips.ac.ru

Received: 6 March 2014
Received in final form: 3 June 2014
Published online: 4 November 2014

Abstract

A homogeneous column of argon plasma at a pressure of 0.5 torr, generated by means of the Beenakker cavity, has been investigated by methods of emission spectroscopy, photography and self-consistent 3D modeling in a nonlocal approximation. It is shown that the plasma column, which spreads beyond the resonator, is spatially uniform and it represents the afterglow of the microwave discharge produced inside the cavity. The simulation data of the spatial distributions of the electron energy density and concentrations of electrons, ions and argon atoms in metastable and radiating states are presented. The results of calculations are in agreement with experimental data.