title: Gas temperature measurements in weakly ionized glow discharges with filtered Rayleigh scattering.
abstract: We report the first gas temperature measurements in plasmas to our knowledge obtained by filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS). A narrow-linewidth Ti:sapphire laser is used as the illumination source, and a mercury filter provides strong suppression of elastic background. We perform measurements in weakly ionized glow discharges in pure argon and in an argon-plus-1%-nitrogen mixture. Where possible, we verify the FRS technique by comparing filtered measurements with unfiltered measurements. We present point measurements of axial temperature with uncertainties of less than 5%. We use a planar scheme to obtain radial temperature profiles with uncertainties of 10%.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, New Jersey 08544, USA. azer@saha.stanford.edu
authors.forename: Azer P
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Yalin
authors.forename: Yury Z
authors.initials: YZ
authors.lastname: Ionikh
authors.forename: Richard B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Miles