Zener Sukra Lie, Hideaki Niki, Kiichiro Kagawa, May On Tjia, Rinda Hedwig, Marincan Pardede, Eric Jobiliong, Maria Margaretha Suliyanti, Syahrun Nur Abdulmadjid, Koo Hendrik Kurniawan

This paper appears in:  Journal of Applied Physics 109

Issue Date:  23 May 2011
On page(s): 103305-1 – 103305-4

 

Abstract

An experiment was performed for the observation of H emission induced in a cooled laser-induced atmospheric pressure gas plasma of He atoms in their metastable excited state. The strong H emission detected clearly established, to the exclusion of other well known major excitation processes, the exclusive contribution of the He-induced excitation (HIE) mechanism. The process is suggested to take place by means of energy transfer from the excited He atoms to the H atoms via Penning collision induced ionization involving electron exchange. The result further shows that this mechanism may also work for elements other than H and thereby strongly suggests the use of ambient He gas to broaden and complement the applications of standard laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy.