Spatially-resolved oes measurement of inductively-coupled plasmas in E and H modes

Summary form only given. Spatially-resolved OES and single Langmuir probe measurements are used to investigate the discharge characteristics in both E and H modes in inductively coupled pure Ar and Ar-N₂ mixture plasmas. Different behaviors of electron density and certain line intensities are observed in the downstream region when the plasma experiences a mode transition. Since mode transition is a localized phenomenon and the distribution of different species in the plasma is affected by both the generation process and diffusion process, the variation of line intensity with axial position in the discharge region during mode transition is interpreted in terms of the transport of metastable species and electron confinement in both modes. Different shape of hysteresis curves for different lines are also observed. This phenomenon is highly relevant to the excitation cross section of the argon metastable atoms