Spectroscopic study of unique line broadening and inversion in low-pressure microwave generated water plasmas

Abstract

It was demonstrated that low pressure (~0.2 Torr) water vapor plasmas generated in a 10 mm inner diameter quartz tube with an Evenson microwave cavity show at least two features which are not explained by conventional plasma models. First, significant (> 2.5 Å) hydrogen Balmer α line broadening, of constant width, up to 5 cm from the microwave coupler was recorded. Only hydrogen, and not oxygen, showed significant line broadening. This feature, observed previously in hydrogen-containing mixed gas plasmas generated with high voltage dc and rf discharges was explained by some researchers to result from acceleration of hydrogen ions near the cathode. This explanation cannot apply to the line broadening observed in the (electrodeless) microwave plasmas generated in this work, particularly at distances as great as 5 cm from the microwave coupler.Second, inversion of the line intensities of both the Lyman and Balmer series, again, at distances up to 5 cm from the coupler, were observed. The line inversion suggests the existence of a hitherto unknown source of pumping of the 2 optical power in plasmas. Finally, it is notable that other aspects of the plasma including the OH * rotational temperature and low electron concentrations are quite typical of plasmas of this type. a)

Spectroscopic observation of helium-ion- and hydrogen-catalyzed hydrino transitions

“…The same phenomenon was also observed in the case of the 2H catalyst as reported previously [43,44]. The pumping of the H lines to extraordinarily high levels demonstrated that the 2H catalyst served to maintain a high hydrino transition reaction rate in a water-vapor microwave discharge plasma.…”

“…Extreme ultraviolet emission spectra were obtained on microwave plasmas of helium alone, helium-hydrogen (5% to 17%) mixtures, helium-nitrogen (5% to 17%) mixtures, and water vapor [43,44]. The microwave generator was a Sairem (GMP03KS, 2.45 GHz, 300 W).…”

Evidence of catalytic production of hot atomic hydrogen in RF generated hydrogen/helium plasmas

“…For example, we also showed that in H 2 /Ar plasmas produced in the same GEC cell, hot hydrogen is found throughout the chamber [40]. It has also been shown previously that selective heating of hydrogen atoms is found in a number of plasmas in which argon is not present [1,[3][4][5][20][21][22][23][24].…”

“…Perhaps most compelling is a study showing that the phenomenon can be found in microwave-generated plasmas [24]. provide an outline of the types of reactions which may occur, but it is not an exhaustive list.…”

“…Moreover, the process that produces the 'sub ground state hydrogen', and concomitantly releases the energy to produce super heated 'standard' atomic hydrogen, requires a novel 'resonant transfer' interaction between hydrogen atoms and particular atomic catalysts, including Ar The role of experimental physics in situations such as that described above is clear: Undertake programs that will produce distinctly different outcomes for competing hypotheses. Indeed, there are many published tests, spectroscopic [2,18,[20][21][22][23][24][25][26], calorimetric [27,28], NMR [29], etc. that indicate the CQM theory conforms to experiment rather better than standard quantum theory.…”