Modeling of Plasma‐Chemical Reactions in Gas Mixture of CO2Lasers I. Gas Decomposition in Pure CO2Glow Discharge

The chemistry of a pure CO2glow discharge is modelled as a first step in description of CO2lasers plasma‐chemical reactions. The equilibrium conversion of CO2into CO strongly depends onE/Nratio. It grows from few percent forE/N= 2 × 10−16V cm2to more then 70% forE/N∼ 9 × 10−16V cm2. TheXevalues are only slightly influenced by the change of electron density and temperature. The role of ions and of the CO(a3II) excited electronic state in recombination of CO as well as of heterogeneous recombination is studied. The time required to reach the steady‐state concentrations of chemical species in the system varies from few seconds for highE/Nvalues up to hours in the other end of investigated region; it increases with the fall of discharge current and with the fall ofE/N. Satisfactory agreement with experimental data is achieved.