XeCl excimer emission linear plasma arrays

Summary form only given. When operated in a gas mixture of Hydrogen Chloride (HCl) and Xenon (Xe) (0.06% HCl, 0.03% Hydrogen, 1.5% Xe, balance Neon), microhollow cathode discharges (MHCDs) have been shown to generate XeCl radiation with efficiencies on the order of percent. As a result, these discharges have applications where the generation of UV radiation is required, such as excimer lamps for curing and decontamination. In these applications, optimizing the efficiency of the system in terms excimer power delivered to the application site per electrical power consumed by the lamp is desired. In practical applications, this requires not only efficient production of excimers within the plasma, but also that the discharge be geometrically configured to deliver the generated excimer radiation to the application site as efficiently as possible. The ability to achieve the desired geometry by extending the geometric configuration of the discharge, and hence and excimer lamp, in one dimension, as in linear plasma arrays, and in two dimensions, such as in an arbitrarily shaped array, can thus improve the overall efficiency of the system. One possibility for such a system is an array of microhollow discharges, where voltages of approximately 200 V and currents on the order of 1 mA are typical when operated dc, resulting in an electrical power for a single discharge on the order of 100 mW. For these currents the plasma extends over the surface of the cathode outside the microhole and forms a plasma layer approximately 100 micrometers thick. When configured in linear arrays on a planar cathode surface, experimental results show that the efficiency of the discharge in producing excimer radiation is improved. Experimental studies were performed on XeCl discharge sources with non-linear geometries. Results of experiments in dc mode with respect to optical emission at 308 nm will be reported.