Kinetic Characteristics of Production and Loss of Nitrogen Atoms in N2Plasma

The method of electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) is used to measure the rates of production and concentration of nitrogen atoms, the rate constants of their heterogeneous loss, and some electrophysical characteristics of plasma at gas pressures of 60–533 Pa and discharge currents of 10–80 mA in the positive column of a d.c. discharge in N₂. Analysis of the dissociation processes revealed that, in addition to the decay of electron states excited from N₂(X ¹ _g ) by electron impact, reactions involving excited nitrogen molecules may play an important role in the formation of N atoms.