Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387

Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect

Optics and Lasers in Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/optlaseng

Measurement of temperature and electrons density distribution

of atmospheric arc plasma by moiré deflectometry technique
Fatemeh Salimi Meidanshahi a, Khosro Madanipour b,c,n, Babak Shokri a,d
a
Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Department of Physics, Tehran, Iran
b
Optics, Laser and Photonics Institute, Amirkabir University of Technology, Hafez Street, Tehran, Iran
c
Optical Measurement Central Laboratory, Amirkabir University of Technology, Hafez Street, Tehran, Iran
d
Shahid Beheshti University, G.C., Laser and Plasma Research Institute, Tehran, Iran

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In the present paper, the refractive index, electron density and temperature distribution of atmospheric
Received 6 September 2012 arc plasmas are measured by moiré deflectometry. The deflection angle of rays passing through the
Received in revised form plasma is obtained by moiré fringe analysis. Then by using inverse Abel transform integral for this
11 November 2012
axisymmetric plasma, the refractive index distribution is obtained in different points of plasma and
Accepted 30 November 2012
Available online 25 December 2012
environment. Considering the relation between plasma temperature and refractive index, the spatial
temperature distribution of the arc plasma is evaluated. Also, in contrast to conventional models to
Keywords: obtain electron number density, in which the refractive index of plasmas is approximately assumed
Moiré deflectometry equal to the electron refractive index, a model is used for accurate and absolute measurement of the
Atmospheric arc plasma
electron density profile. This technique is especially suitable for measuring axially symmetric plasma
Electron
parameters.
Ion and molecule number density
& 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction phase objects or reflection surfaces [26–29]. Moiré deflectometry in

The spatial distributions of temperature and electron concentra-
tion are important characteristics in optimum design and application
of variety of plasmas. So it is desirable that a technique applied for
plasma diagnostics is non-interfering and capable of in-situ and on-
line measuring the probe volume. Plasma diagnostic techniques can
be divided into two categories: the method based on the electric
probes and the optical methods. In the first method, several
difficulties in use of electrical probes, as a simple method, restrict
the advantage of this method. For example, the dimensions of the
probes perturbing the plasma and the need for complicated analysis
for some plasma conditions are essential restrictions.
Several optical diagnostic methods give very high accuracy due to
non-intrusive probes [1,2]. Among them, holographic interferometry
[3–6,9], Schlieren and shadowgraphy techniques [7–11], optical
emission spectroscopy and laser absorbtion [8,9,12–15], Thomson
scattering [9], Michelson, Mach–Zehnder and Nomarski polarization
interferometry [16–20], laser beam deflectometry [21] and digital
holography [22–24] can be mentioned.
Moiré deflectometry is a method of wave front analysis in which
both Talbot effect [25] and moiré technique is applied for measuring
contrast to interferometry methods is simple and is not sensitive to
vibration with no complicated and expensive measurement set-up.
Also, interferometric methods are not efficient at high gradient
temperature and density due to decreasing fringe spacing and
difficulty of recording and analyzing of the fringes.
The main advantage of moiré deflectometry technique is that
the spatial profile of considerable parameter can be obtained by
one time measurement but laser beam deflectometry and spec-
troscopic methods provide only pointwise data. Also plasma
diagnostics by moiré deflectometry in contrast to spectroscopic
methods does not need restricting assumption of the local
thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) state of plasmas.
In the present paper, moiré deflectometry technique is applied
to determine the electron density and temperature distribution of
atmospheric arc plasma. In contrast to conventional models to
obtain electron number density, in which the refractive index of
plasmas are approximately assumed to be equal to the electron
refractive index and ignore the ions and neutral particles con-
tributions, a model is used for accurate and absolute measure-
ment of the electron density profile.

2. Theory
n
Corresponding author at: Optics, Laser and Photonics Institute, Amirkabir
University of Technology, Hafez Street, Tehran, Iran. Tel.: þ 98 9122498819;
fax: þ 98 21 64543140.
When a plasma is transparent with respect to a probe light, it
E-mail addresses: madanipour@aut.ac.ir, can be assumed as a phase object. The light beam passing through
kmadanipour@gmail.com (K. Madanipour). the plasma medium is deflected due to the refractive index

0143-8166/$ - see front matter & 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.optlaseng.2012.11.018
 F.S. Meidanshahi et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387 383

Y According to the dispersion relation in the plasma and phase

α δd velocity definition, the electron density distribution can be
evaluated in terms of contribution of electrons to the plasma
rf
yf refractive index [32]:
Y0
2pme c2
P1
x0 xf
P2 X Ne ¼ 2
ð1nÞe ; ð4Þ
e2 l
Z where me and e are electron charge and mass; n, c, l and Ne are
G1 G2
the refractive index, light velocity in vacuum, probe wavelength
and electron number density, respectively.
Fig. 1. Light beam deflection, passing through the phase object and gratings G1
and G2.
The contribution of electrons to the plasma refractive index
can be rewritten as
2
gradient. By measuring the deflection angle, the refractive index e2 l N e 2  
ðn1Þe ¼   4:46  1014 l N e l : cm,Ne : cm3 : ð5Þ
and subsequently, different parameters such as electron, ion and 2pme c2
molecule concentrations and also temperature distribution can be The refractive index of neutral molecules can be expressed
obtained. Among the different optical techniques for temperature as [33]
measurement, Moiré deflectometry is a technique of wave front  
1 B
analysis based on geometrical optics. Deflection of the light beam ðn1Þm ¼ A þ 2 Nm ; ð6Þ
L l
passing through the inhomogeneous medium is utilized to obtain
the different parameters distribution. As it is shown in Fig. 1, a where, L is the Loschmidt number (L¼2.687  1019 cm  3), Nm is
coherent collimated light beam propagates through a phase the molecule number density and A and B are constant quantities
object (plasma) as the probe beam and the beam is deflected depending on molecules or atoms for oxygen and nitrogen that
due to the refractive index gradient in the object. For simplicity, are A¼2.83  10, 4 B ¼2.03  10  6 [33]. Mostly, the contribution
the pitches of two gratings should be the same (d). So the self- of ions to the refractive index can be neglected but one can
image of grating G1 lines on grating G2 is displaced by dd. consider the contribution of ions in the refractive index of the
Ultimately moiré pattern is shifted by ddM. According to Fig. 1, plasma as follows:
the ray deflection angle a can be calculated by [20]  
1 B
ðn1Þi ¼ Z A þ 2 Ni ; ð7Þ
dd d ddM ðy,zÞ L l
aðy,zÞ ¼ ¼ ð1Þ
Xk Xk dM
where Z is the relative specific refractivity (specific refractivity of
where d and dM are the pitch of gratings and moiré fringes ions with respect to molecules). It is well known that the
2 refractive index of a gas depends on its microscopic properties
spacing, Xk is kth Talbot distance given byX k ¼ kd =l where l is
the wavelength of the probe beam. Eq. (1) shows that the and mass density distribution. So the refractive index of the
resolution of moiré deflectometry in diagnosing the refractive plasma can be rewritten as
index can be increased by using the gratings with smaller pitches  
1 B   2  
and higher Talbot distances. n1 ¼ Aþ 2 N m þ ZN i 4:46  1014 l N e l : cm,N e : cm3 :
L l
For an axially
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
ffi symmetric object, where n(x,y,z)¼n(r,z) and ð8Þ
r ¼ x2 þ y2 , the refractive index can be written in cylindrical
coordinates as [20] As air contains roughly (by volume) 78.09% nitrogen and 20.95%
Z oxygen, for atmospheric plasmas by substituting A ¼2.83  10, 4
nf rf aðy,zÞ B¼ 2.03  10  6, and Z ¼0.8143 for air [34], and the probe wave-
nðr,zÞnf ¼  pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi dy; ð2Þ
p r y2 r 2 length 632.8 nm into the above equation, we obtain:

where n(x,y,z) and nfs are the refractive index of the phase object n ¼ 1:0709  1023 ðNm þ0:8143N i Þ1:7859  1022 Ne : ð9Þ
and air (ambience), respectively; x0 and xf are the limits of the
Eqs. (8) and (9) show the negative effect of the electron
phase object in the propagation direction. Therefore, the sensi-
number density on the refractive index and indicate that n is a
tivity of this technique is proportional to the accuracy of measur-
function of probe wavelength, and electron, molecule and ion
ing the deflection angle. So the sensitivity can be increased by
number densities. The contribution of an electron is almost 17
optimizing the pitch of gratings and Talbot distance and by
times than the contribution of a molecule and 20.5 times than the
increasing the moiré spacing. By numerical solution of this
contribution of an ion.
inverse Abel integral [30], the refractive index distribution is
It should be mentioned that Ne and Ni and Nm can be calculated
determined.
by considering the first and second ionization of the dominant
Edlen equation can be used to calculate the air refractive
substances in the atmospheric arc plasma and solving the Saha
index, nf, by measuring the ambient atmospheric conditions
equation. Assuming quasi-neutrality of plasmas and making use
including air temperature, pressure, and relative humidity [26].
of the ideal gas state equation, the final relations are [34]:
To determine the plasma temperature distribution, the relation  
between the refractive index and temperature should be K 1P 2K 1 K 2 P
N3e þ 2K 1 N2e þ 3K 1 K 2  Ne  ¼ 0; ð10Þ
calculated. kT kT
The refractive index of the plasma as an ionized gas including
the contribution of neutral molecules, ions and electrons is equal K 2 þ Ne
Ni ¼ Ne ; ð11Þ
to [31] 2K 2 þ Ne

ðn1Þ ¼ ðn1Þe þ ðn1Þi þ ðn1Þm : ð3Þ P 2N2e þ 3N e K 2

Nm ¼  ; ð12Þ
kT Ne þ 2K 2
Three right terms of Eq. (3) correspond to the refractive index
of electrons, ions and molecules, respectively. where P is the plasma pressure.
384 F.S. Meidanshahi et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387
According to Eq. (9) and above equations, the relation between
the refractive index and electron number density can be calcu-
lated. Fig. 2 indicates the dependence of the refractive index on
electron density which is a useful criterion to determine the
plasma region. Corresponding to plasma definition, even partially
ionized gas as few as 10 electrons per cubic centimeter can have
the characteristics of plasma [35]. When the refractive index
distribution versus distance is evaluated experimentally from
Eq. (2), the plasma region can be determined. The relation
between temperature and electron density can be obtained by
solving Eq. (10). Moreover, by measuring the electron density
distribution, the temperature distribution can be calculated.
3. Experiments and results
In this section, the temperature distribution and electron
number density of the atmospheric arc plasma are measured by
moiré deflectometry method according to the approach described
in Section 2. The schematic of the experimental set-up is pre-
sented in Fig. 3. A He–Ne laser with wavelength 632.8 nm is the
probe light source and lenses L1 and L2 are used as a beam
expander. A precision pin hole (PH) with diameter 8 mm is
positioned at the intermediate focal point of lenses for spatial
filtering.
Two Ronchi gratings with the pitch d ¼0.1 mm are used in the
measurement set-up. Grating G2 is placed on the 12th Talbot
distance of grating G1. In this distance which is about 190 mm, the
visibility of moiré fringes are maximum.
Fig. 2. Distribution of refractive index (n  1) versus the logarithm of the electron
density.
PC
CCD D
L3
Fig. 3. Schematic diagram of moiré deflectometry. L1, L2 and L3 are three convex lenses. G1 and G2 are two gratings with a pitch of 0.1 mm. PH, TO, D, CCD and PC stand for
pin hole, test object, diaphragm, camera and computer, respectively.
By focusing lens L3 with 200 mm focal length, a CCD camera
records reference fringes and deformed fringes. For eliminating
the lines of gratings and recording only moiré pattern, a dia-
phragm placed at the focus of L3 serves as a spatial filter that can
let only the zero spatial frequency pass through.
As seen in Fig. 4, the measured atmospheric arc plasma is
produced by using a power supply with 12 kV voltage. The
distance between the two electrodes is 3.20 mm and the electro-
des are made of non-magnetic stainless steel. When the plasma is
generated, temperature and refractive index gradient is created in
the plasma medium and the air around the plasma. These
gradients cause the deformation of moiré fringes. Fig. 5 shows
two images recorded by the CCD camera before and after
temperature gradient: (a) shows the reference deflectogram;
(b) shows the deformed moiré deflectogram after generating the
plasma. The deflection of moiré pattern is obvious in Fig. 5b. By
image analysis, the moiré fringes position is found. This position
is shown in Fig. 6; the moiré fringe deflection versus the moiré
fringe spacing ddM =dM is obtained in each point of the image. The
ray deflection angle data, a, is evaluated from Eq. (1) as illustrated
in Fig. 7. The amount of the moire deflection, ddM, is the difference
between reference and deflected fringes position.
The laboratory temperature, pressure and relative humidity
was recorded 29.2 1C, 660.65 mmHg and 38.4%, respectively.
Therefore, the ambient refractive index is calculated from Edlen
equation as nf ¼1.000228570.000000039 [36]. The refractive
index distribution versus distance from the arc plasma center is
shown in Fig. 8. As can be seen, the refractive index reaching to a
fix value is compatible with the ambient refractive index
1.0002285. By the described approach, since plasma density can
range from just a few electrons (approximately 10 electrons)
present in a cubic centimeter for Lab plasmas, the plasma region
Fig. 4. Moiré deflectometry experimental set-up.
ARC
PH
Laser
L1
L2
G2 G1
 F.S. Meidanshahi et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387 385

Fig. 5. (a) Reference fringes, and (b) deflected fringes by temperature gradient of the measured atmospheric arc plasma and the air around it.

Fig. 7. The ray deflection angle versus distance from the arc plasma center.

the plasma is 111111 K in the center of the plasma. Also, diameter

Fig. 6. The found position of moiré deflectogram.
can be determined. It means that according to Fig. 2, the plasma
region is valid when the number of electron carriers per cubic
centimeter is higher than 10 (cm  3). Fig. 9 shows the spatial
distribution of the refractive index of the plasma. The plot of the
electron number density versus distance is presented in Fig. 10.
By inserting the laboratory pressure as the plasma pressure
and the electron density of the plasma into Eq. (10), the
temperature profile versus distance from the arc plasma center
is evaluated, shown in Fig. 11. Both plots in Figs. 10 and 11, show
an approximately symmetrical distribution of the arc plasma.
From Fig. 10, the highest number density of electrons is
3.37  1016 cm  3 and from Fig. 11, the highest temperature of
of the plasma is obtained approximately as 2.53 mm. As expected,
the measured ne and T profiles are not the same at different r
positions and both of them decrease with the increasing distance
from the plasma center.
4. Conclusion
The work presented in this paper concerns atmospheric arc
plasma diagnostics. The refractive index, electron number density
and temperature distribution of the plasma is obtained by
calculating the temperature dependence of the arc plasma refrac-
tive index and the relation between electron density and the
refractive index of the plasma. It appears that this optical
386 F.S. Meidanshahi et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387
Fig. 8. Refractive index distribution versus distance from the arc plasma center.
Fig. 9. The dependence of the refractive index of the plasma region on distance
from arc plasma center evaluated experimentally.
Fig. 10. The electron density profile of the atmospheric arc plasma versus distance
from the arc plasma center.
deflectometry as an accurate and automatic method can be
one of the best way to experimentally study the transparent
axially symmetric plasmas with high temperature gradient and
Fig. 11. The temperature distribution of the arc plasma versus distance from the
arc plasma center.
consequently to determine the optimum condition for every
plasma application. This confirms that the present method has
several advantages with respect to the most popular methods in
plasma diagnostics such as Longmuir probe, spectroscopy and
Mach–Zehnder interferometry. This technique, with no compli-
cated and expensive setup, is simple and not sensitive to vibra-
tion. Also the test object should be transparent with respect to the
wavelength of the probe light. The advantage of moiré deflecto-
metry with respect to interferometry is the direct evaluation of
the refractive index gradient and its simplicity. Also for large
temperature gradients, interferometry is limited and can produce
erroneous information while moiré deflectometry is able to be
used with more certainty. The accuracy and the sensitivity of
moiré deflectometry technique can be increased by varying the
Talbot distance and the pitch of moiré fringe.
Acknowledgments
Authors would like to acknowledge Mr. Mohhamad Reza Khani
for his great help in the plasma laboratory.
References
[1] Daltrini AM, Moshkalev SA, Swart L, Verdonck PB. Plasma parameters
obtained with planar probe and optical emission spectroscopy. J Integrated
Circuits Syst 2007;2(2):67–73.
[2] Bhatti KA, Khaleeq-ur-Rahman M, Rafique MS, Shahzad MI, Latif A, Parveen N.
Electrical diagnostics of laser ablated platinum plasma. Vacuum 2008;82:
1157–61.
[3] Vest CM. Holographic interferometry. New York: Wiley; 1979.
[4] Reuses DL. Temperature measurement in a radially symmetric flame using
holographic interferometry. Combust Flame 1983;49:207–9.
[5] Reuses DL, Scolex PH. Interferometric temperature measurements of a flame
in a cylindrical tube using holography. Appl Opt 1987;26:1661–7.
[6] Posner JD, Dunn-Rankin D. Temperature field measurements of small, non-
premixed flames with use of an Abel inversion of holographic interferograms.
App Opt 2003;42:952–9.
[7] Prevosto L, Artana G, Mancinelli B, Kelly H. Schlieren technique applied to the
arc temperature measurement in a high energy density cutting torch. J Appl
Phys 2010;107(2):023304–5.
[8] Muraoka Katsunori, Maeda Mitsuo. Laser-aided diagnostics of plasmas and
gases. Bristol and Philadelphia: Institute of Physics Publishing; 2001.
[9] Ovsyannikov AA, Zhukov MF. Plasma diagnostics. Cambridge Publishing;
2000.
[10] Settles GS. Schlieren and shadowgraph techniques. Berlin: Springer; 2001.
[11] Thiyagarajan M, Scharer J. Experimental investigation of ultraviolet laser
induced plasma density and temperature evolution in air. J Appl Phys
2008;104:013303.
[12] Feldman U, Doschek GA. Plasma diagnostics using high-resolution spectro-
scopic techniques. J Opt Soc Am 1977;67(6):726–34.
 F.S. Meidanshahi et al. / Optics and Lasers in Engineering 51 (2013) 382–387
[13] Haidar J. Departures from local thermodynamic equilibrium in high-current
free burning arcs in argon. J Phys D: Appl Phys 1997;30:2737–43.
[14] Corliss Charles H. Temperature of a copper arc. J Res Nat Bur Stand-A. Phys
Chem 1962;66A(1).
[15] Blagojevic B, Popovic MV, Konjevic N, Pavlovic Z. Electron temperature
measurements in medium electron density plasmas. J Quant Spectrosc Radiat
Transfer 2000;66:571–9.
[16] Akhtar K, Scharer JE, Tysk ShM, Kho E. Plasma interferometry at high
pressures. Rev Sci Instrum 2003;74(2):996–1001.
[17] Camacho JR, Beg FN, Lee1 P. Comparison of sensitivities of Moiré deflecto-
metry and interferometry to measure electron densities in z-pinch plasmas. J
Phys D 2007;40:2026–32.
[18] Wan AS, Da Silva LB, Barbee Jr. TW, Cauble R, Celliers P, Libby SB, London RA,
Moreno JC, Trebes JE, Weber F. Application of x-ray-laser interferometry to
study high-density laser-produced plasmas. J Opt Soc Am B 1996.
[19] Weiss CO, Teuber K. A laser interferometer for measuring electron densities
in an arc plasma. Opt Commun 1976;16(3):399–401.
[20] Shakher C, Nirala AK. A review on refractive index and temperature profile
measurements using laser-based interferometric techniques. Opt Lasers Eng
1999;31:455–91.
[21] Brockington SJE, Horton RD, Hwang DQ, Evans RW, Howard SJ, Francis Thio
YC. Plasma density gradient measurement using laser deflection. Rev Sci
Instrum 2005;76:063503.
[22] Sharma S, Sheoran G, Shakher C. Temperature measurement of axi-
symmetric flame under the influence of magnetic field using lens less fourier
transform digital holography. Appl Opt 2012;51:4554–62.
[23] Sharma S, Sheoran G, Shakher C. Investigation of temperature and tempera-
ture profile in axi-symmetric flame of butane torch burner using digital
holographic interferometry. Opt Lasers Eng 2012;50(10):1436–44.
387
[24] Sharma S, Sheoran G, Shakher C. Digital holographic interferometry for
measurement of temperature in axisymmetric flames. Appl Opt
2012;51(16):3228–323.
[25] Chandra Shakher, Daniel AJPramila. Talbot interferometry with circular
grating for the measurement of temperature in axisymmetric gaseous flames.
Appl Opt 1994;33:6068–72.
[26] Song Yang, Yun Chen Yun, He Anzhi, Zhao Zhimin. Theoretical analysis for
moiré deflectometry from diffraction theory. J Opt Soc Am A 2009;26:882–9.
[27] Bar-Ziv EE, Glatt I, Kafri O. Measurement of temperature distribution of
flames by moiré deflectometry. Appl Opt 1981;20:4263–6.
[28] Kafri Z. Refractive index measurements by moiré deflectometry. Appl Opt
1982;21:3326–8.
[29] Wang Ming. Fourier transform moiré tomography for high-sensitivity map-
ping asymmetric 3-D temperature field. Opt Laser Technol 2002;34:679–85.
[30] Kolhe PS, Agrawal AK. Abel inversion of deflectometric data: comparison
of accuracy and noise propagation of existing techniques. Appl Opt
2009;48(20).
[31] Yun-yun C, Yang S, An-zhi H, Zhen-hua L. Applicability of moiré deflection
tomography for diagnosing arc plasmas. Appl Opt 2009;48(3):489–96.
[32] Krall NA, Trivelpiece AW. Principles of Plasma Physics. New York: McGraw-
Hill; 1973.
[33] Allen CW. Astrophysical Quantities.Athlone; 1963.
[34] Salimi Meidanshahi F, Madanipour K, Shokri B. Investigation of first and
second ionization on optical properties of atmospheric plasmas. Opt Com-
mun 2012;285:453–8.
[35] Peratt AL. Advances in numerical modeling of astrophysical and space
plasmas. Astrophys Space Sci 1997;242:93–163.
[36] /http://emtoolbox.nist.gov/Wavelength/Documentation.asp#AppendixAIVS.