Nitrogen pink afterglow: the mystery continues

Vibrational kinetics in repetitively pulsed atmospheric pressure nitrogen discharges: average-power-dependent switching behaviour

Characterisation of the vibrational kinetics in nitrogen-based plasmas at atmospheric pressure is crucial for understanding the wider plasma chemistry, which is important for a variety of biomedical, agricultural and chemical processing applications. In this study, a 0-dimensional plasma chemical-kinetics model has been used to investigate vibrational kinetics in repetitively pulsed, atmospheric pressure plasmas operating in pure nitrogen, under application-relevant conditions (average plasma powers of 0.23-4.50 W, frequencies of 1-10 kHz, and peak pulse powers of 23-450 W). Simulations predict that vibrationally excited state production is dominated by electron-impact processes at lower average plasma powers. When the average plasma power increases beyond a certain limit, due to increased pulse frequency or peak pulse power, there is a switch in behaviour, and production of vibrationally excited states becomes dominated by vibrational energy transfer processes (vibration-vibration (V-V) and vibration-translation (V-T) reactions). At this point, the population of vibrational levels up to v ⩽ 40 increases significantly, as a result of V-V reactions causing vibrational up-pumping. At average plasma powers close to where the switching behaviour occurs, there is potential to control the energy efficiency of vibrational state production, as small increases in energy deposition result in large increases in vibrational state densities. Subsequent pathways analysis reveals that energy in the vibrational states can also influence the wider reaction chemistry through vibrational-electronic (V-E) linking reactions (N + N2 ( 40 ⩽ v ⩽ 45 ) → N( 2 D ) + N2 ( A ) and N + N2 ( 39 ⩽ v ⩽ 45 ) → N + N2 ( a ' ) ), which result in increased Penning ionisation and an increased average electron density. Overall, this study investigates the potential for delineating the processes by which electronically and vibrationally excited species are produced in nitrogen plasmas. Therefore, potential routes by which nitrogen-containing plasma sources could be tailored, both in terms of chemical composition and energy efficiency, are highlighted.

Improvement of the emission properties from InGaN/GaN dot-in-a-wire nanostructures after treatment in the flowing afterglow of a microwave N₂ plasma

Nominally pure GaN nanowires (NWs) and InGaN/GaN dot-in-a-wire heterostructures were exposed to the flowing afterglow of a N2 microwave plasma and characterized by photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. While the band-edge emission from GaN NWs and the GaN matrix of the InGaN/GaN NWs strongly decreased due to the creation of non-radiative recombination centers in the near-surface region, the emission from the InGaN dots strongly increased. PL excitation measurements indicate that such an increase cannot be explained by a plasma-induced shift of the GaN absorption edge. It is rather ascribed to the passivation of grown-in defects and dynamic annealing due to the presence of plasma-generated N atoms and N2 metastables without excessive introduction of ion-induced damage.