Population of Electronically Excited Atoms in an ICP CO₂ Plasma: Experiment vs. Modeling

At the Institute of Space Systems (IRS), carbon dioxide dissociation at high power (160kW) and reduced pressure (2900Pa) is studied in the plasma wind tunnel PWK3, powered by the inductively coupled plasma source IPG4 (Inductive Plasma Generator 4). In this work, the significant atomic emission of the CO₂ plasma plume is analyzed by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) and used for the comparison of simulations with experimental data. The kinetic model globalKin, developed by Prof. Mark Kushner from the University of Michigan, is applied to investigate the electronic excitation of atomic carbon and oxygen in the core region of the IPG4 CO₂ plasma jet. For this purpose, relevant excitation processes are implemented in the code. The influence of input parameters on the level population is examined. Moreover, artificial spectra are created based on the global modeling results.