Detection of molecular oxygen using nanosecond-laser-induced plasma.

Molecular oxygen (O2) concentration is measured by employing nanosecond laser-induced plasmas (ns-LIP) over a broad temperature spectrum ranging from 300 K to 1000 K, in the presence of an additional oxygen-containing molecule, CO2. Typically, emission spectra emanating from ns-LIP are devoid of molecular information, as the ns-LIP causes the dissociation of molecular species within the plasma. However, atomic oxygen absorption lines that momentarily appear at 777 nm in the broadband emission from the early-stage plasma are determined to be highly sensitive to the O2 mole fraction but negligibly affected by the CO2 mole fraction. The atomic O absorbing the plasma emission originates from the O2 adjacent to the plasma: robust UV radiation from the early-stage plasma selectively dissociates adjacent O2, exhibiting a relatively low photodissociation threshold, thus generating the specific meta-stable oxygen capable of absorbing photons at 777 nm. A theoretical model is introduced, explicating the formation of the meta-stable O atom from adjacent O2. To sustain the UV radiation from the plasma under high-temperature and low-density ambient conditions, a preceding breakdown is triggered by a split laser pulse (532 nm). This breakdown acts as a precursor, seeding electrons to intensify the inverse-Bremsstrahlung photon absorption of the subsequent laser pulse (1064 nm). Techniques such as proper orthogonal decomposition (POD) and support vector regression (SVR) are employed to precisely evaluate the O2 mole fraction (<1% uncertainty), by analyzing the short-lived (<10 ns) O2-indicator depicted in the early-stage plasma.