Transportation of nitrogen atoms in an atmospheric pressure post-discharge of pure nitrogen

In this paper, the transportation of nitrogen atoms in a flowing post-discharge of molecular nitrogen at atmospheric pressure is studied. The axial variation of the density of nitrogen atoms is modelled and compared with measurements. A relatively high initial density, i.e. several 10 14 atoms/cm 3 , is obtained by this approach, showing also that the main losses are caused by volume and surface recombination during transportation. A low value is found for the recombination probability of the used polyamide surface (around some 10 −4 ) allowing therefore quite long transportation times and distances.