Excimer Emission from Pulsed High Pressure Xenon Glow Discharges

High pressure glow discharges are used in plasma processing, gas lasers, chemical and bacterial decontamination of gases, and as mirrors and absorbers of microwave radiation. Transient high pressure glow discharges, such as barrier discharges1 and ac discharges2 are already well established, but recently high pressure dc discharges in noble gases3 and in air,4,5 with dimensions of up to centimeters have been generated by using novel plasma cathodes. One of them is a microhollow cathode discharge sustained plasma, where the microhollow cathode discharge provides the electrons for the main discharge. The elimination of the cathode fall, the cradle for glow-to-arc transition has allowed us to generate dc glow discharges with electron densities as high as 1013 cm-3, at gas temperature below 2000 K.4,6