In Situ Thermometry in Noble Gas Dielectric Barrier Discharges at Atmospheric Pressure

Atmospheric pressure (AP) dielectric barrier discharges (DBDs) are increasingly used to treat thermally‐sensitive materials. Reliable measurements of the kinetic gas temperature, T , are therefore of capital importance. Spectroscopically determined rotational temperatures, T rot , are often tacitly assumed to be equal to T . Here, we measured T with fibre‐optic instrumentation that is a priori immune towards high voltages and high‐frequency electromagnetic fields generally encountered in plasmas. Finding T rot  >  T in AP glow discharge (APGD) DBDs in He and Ne, we believe that T rot  ≈  T only during the short (≈ µs) current peaks that characterize APGD. Therefore, T represents the time‐averaged gas temperature; calorimetric measurements using a thermocouple buried in an electrode support this view.