No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Thin films of fluorocarbon-based polymers can be deposited by plasma assisted polymerisation of various perfluorocarbons. The chemical natures of plasma polymers of hexafluoropropene and perfluorohexane were examined as a function of power, flow rate and position in reactor. Polymerised hexafluoropropene displayed increased fluorine contents at high powers; this is at odds with perfluorohexane which demonstrated lower fluorine contents. Differing reaction mechanisms between saturated and unsaturated perfluorocarbons were proposed to explain this. Both perfluorocarbons were found to give increased CF(_2) contents out of the plasma glow region. This was demonstrated to be a function of distance from the monomer inlet, and was ascribed to the production of long lived polymer forming species in the gas phase. Plasma oxidation of low density polyethylene, polystyrene and poly (ether ether ketone) with oxygen and carbon dioxide was modelled by corresponding photooxidation reactions. Correlations between the structure of the polymer, the treatment used, and the final products were drawn. Aliphatic components tended to give carbon-oxygen single bonds, phenyl rings were oxidised to carbonyl and acid groups, and carbonyl groups to acids. Metal-containing polymeric thin films were produced from plasmas of zinc acetylacetonate and aluminium tri-sec -butoxide. The products from each monomer were different, with the zinc compound resulting in a high proportion of zinc carboxylate and the aluminium compound giving the oxide or hydroxide. Incorporation of these compounds into a perfluorohexane plasma resulted in the formation of metal fluoride containing thin films.

The development of sample introduction techniques for solid materials is a desirable goal in analytical atomic spectrometry. Traditional techniques have involved the introduction of samples as liquids by processes such as nebulisation. However some solid materials are not readily amenable to dissolution procedures and for the determination of elements at the ultra-trace level the reagents used for dissolution may produce undesired contamination. An additional problem for such determinations is that the dissolution process- may dilute the sample below the level which can be measured by the selected technique. The relative merits of three techniques for the introduction of solids for inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) have been evaluated in this thesis. The techniques studied were a laser ablation system based on a Nd:YAG laser, slurry nebulisation and an electrothermal vaporisation (ETV) system. The parameters which affect the performance of these techniques have been discussed. The application of each technique to the analysis of some geochemical samples has been described. Results are presented for the determination of various elements in fly ash and standard rock samples. The results obtained for each technique are compared. A value of merit has been defined to allow comparison of the results in this thesis with results published in the literature. A comparison of the plasma source in the presence and in the absence of water has been included in this thesis. Ionisation temperature and electron number density measurements were made usinq traditional nebulisation and compared to those obtained using laser ablation.

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No description available.

Measurements of the effect of increasing the discharge column voltage gradient were investigated using argon based mixtures with nitrogen, oxygen and sulphur hexafluoride in a plasma torch. The theoretical calculation of the voltage gradient and the electron number density was based on the Saha equation which was modified for application to the gas mixtures. The investigations showed that a mixture of Ar and SF6 was most effective and increased the voltage gradient to 0.5 V/mm from 0.3 V/mm. The best mixture was 89% Ar, 10% N2 , 1% SF6 based on the highest increase of the voltage gradient and the least added gas. A model has been developed to illustrate the effects of dissociation, excitation, ionisation of gases and their effects on the discharge column voltage gradient: The mode of an electric discharge in Ar was investigated using spectroscopy. The study showed that for a glow discharge the 520.0 nm line and for an arc discharge the 427.1 nm line were unique. These lines were used to investigate a Glydarc electric discharge which was shown to be a mixture of the glow and the arc discharges. Measurements of the transition of the glow to arc in Ar with discharge current ranging from 0.1 A to 1.0 A at atmospheric pressure showed that at the lower value of discharge current (O. 25 A) the spectral lines were dominated by the near infra-red lines whereas at the higher value of discharge current (1.0 A) the spectral lines were included from the near infra-red to the near UV. The Glydarc electric discharge has been studied in still and fast air flows at atmospheric pressure over a range of discharge currents from 100 mA to 3 A. The results showed that the increase of the discharge voltage with increasing discharge current was due to increase of the discharge column length which varied with time and the air flow rate and was not due to a positive dynamic characteristic.

Neste trabalho são apresentados e discutidos resultados referentes à formação e ao equilíbrio da corrente de plasma no TBR, Tokamak projetado e construído no Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo. As curvas de ruptura, determinadas para hidrogênio, argônio e hélio são comparadas com um modelo simples, apresentando um acordo razoável. É verificada a influência de campos magnéticos espúrios na formação do plasma e são encontradas condições que auxiliam no processo de ruptura. São mostrados perfis temporais característicos da corrente de plasma e voltagem de loop para disparos onde se obtém equilíbrio. É feita uma comparação dos resultados experimentais com um modelo para descarga em tokamaks aquecidos ohmicamente. Tendo a carga efetiva como parâmetro, os resultados apresentam um razoável acordo com o modelo. / In this work are presented and discussed results of the formation and equilibrium of the plasma current in TBR, a small tokamak, designed and contructed at the Instituto de Física da Universidade de São Paulo. The measured breakdown curves for H2, A and He are compared with the predictions of a simple model with reasonable agreement. The influence of stray magnetic fields in the plasma formation is investigated and conditions are chosen to facilitate the breakdown. The time profile of loop voltage and plasma current for shots with plasma equilibrium are shown. A comparison is made between experimental results and analytical-numerical model for tokamaks discharges with ohmic heating. Reasonable agreement is obtained when Z, effective atomic number, is assumed as a parameter.