Surface catalytic efficiency of a sputtered molybdenum layer on quartz and Pyrex for the recombination of nitrogen atoms

The temporal properties of the number density of nitrogen atoms were studied during the decay period of plasmas produced in nitrogen by measuring the intensity of the first positive bands during this period. From the analysis of these data the value of the surface catalytic efficiency γ of a sputtered molybdenum layer on quartz and Pyrex for the recombination of nitrogen atoms was determined for gas pressures varying from 0.1 to 5 Torr and gas temperatures in the range 85–500 °K. A theoretical model explaining the data was derived.