Laser diagnostics of non-equilibrium plasmas

In the context of the electrification of the chemical industry, this thesis sets itself the goal of studying two promising plasma reactors: a nanosecond repetitively pulsed (NRP) discharge and a microwave discharge. The NRP reactor has been investigated for the dissociation of CO2. The microwave discharge has been used for studies of vibrational energy loading into N2 , as a first step towards the non-thermal synthesis of NO for fertilizer production. The complicated system that a non-equilibrium plasma represents requires sophisticated diagnostics. Such diagnostics have to be species specific and provide spatial and time resolved information about the quantities of interest, such as temperature (vibrational and rotational), product concentration and energy deposition. Given these require ments, diagnostics based upon the use of pulsed lasers are usually employed to study systems where fast kinetics are at play. The diagnostics of choice are Laser Induced Fluorescence (LIF) and vibrational Raman scattering.