Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Monts, David L.

Committee Member

Molen, G. Marshall

Committee Member

Winstead, Christopher B.

Committee Member

Wang, Chuji

Committee Member

Younan, Nicolas

Other Advisors or Committee Members

Foster, Stephen

Date of Degree

12-11-2004

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Engineering Physics

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

Analytical as well as fundamental measurements were performed with an inductively coupled plasma (ICP) using the novel technique of cavity ringdown spectroscopy. A newly designed ICP torch was presented. Limits of detection were measured for elemental mercury, both in an ICP as well as in a cold mercury chemical generator. The efficiency of the technique was compared with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) in the ICP. Isotopically resolved spectra of uranium were collected with this technique and results were compared to previous studies using LIF. Gas temperature and electron density estimations were done by lineshape measurements on lead atoms in the ICP. Abel inversion technique was used to extract absolute atom densities and ringdown proved to be an excellent candidate for trace detection when coupled with an atomization source. Spectra of hydroxyl radical coming from dissociation of water molecules in air were recorded and OH density was estimated. The plasma was found to be in local thermal equilibrium by comparing simulated and measured OH emission spectra. Future developments of cavity ringdown with ICP using continuous-wave lasers are discussed.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/19187

Comments

Plasma Physics||Atomic Spectroscopy||Molecular Spectroscopy

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