Observation of exclusively He-induced H emission in cooled laser plasma

An experiment was performed for the observation of H emission induced in a cooled laser-induced atmospheric pressure gas plasma of He atoms in their metastable excited state. The strong H emission detected clearly established, to the exclusion of other well known major excitation processes, the exclusive contribution of the He-induced excitation (HIE) mechanism. The process is suggested to take place by means of energy transfer from the excited He atoms to the H atoms via Penning collision induced ionization involving electron exchange. The result further shows that this mechanism may also work for elements other than H and thereby strongly suggests the use of ambient He gas to broaden and complement the applications of standard laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy. (C) 2011 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3592351]