Radiation and self-absorption in argon-iron plasmas at atmospheric pressure

Abstract

The paper presents a theoretical study of the line and continuum radiation emitted by an argon plasma at atmospheric pressure in the presence of iron vapour at concentrations ranging from 0.001 to 10%(molar) and temperatures up to 15 000 K. The results show that the line emission is clearly the dominant mechanism due to the very rich iron spectrum. An analysis of the importance of self-absorption for the argon and iron lines indicates a strong absorption of the argon resonant lines and a significant absorption of iron lines even at low concentrations.