Optical emission spectroscopy observations of fast pulsed capillary discharge plasmas

We present time resolved optical emission spectroscopic (OES) observations of a low energy, pulsed capillary discharage (PCD). The optical emission from the capillary plasma and plasma jets emitted from the capillary volume was recorded with with a SpectraPro 275 spectrograph, fitted with a MCP gated OMA system, with 15 ns time resolution. The discharge was operated with different gases, including argon, nitrogen, hydrogen and methane, in a repetitive pulsed discharge mode at 10-50 Hz, with, 10-12 kV pulses applied at the cathode side. The time evolution of the electron density was measured using Stark broadening of the H_β line. Several features of the capillary plasma dynamics, such as ionization growth, wall effects and plasma jet evolution, are inferred from the time evolution of the optical emission.