Evaporation of copper powders in an inductively coupled thermal rf plasma-numerical modelling and spectroscopic measurements

Calculations concerning motion and evaporation of copper particles injected into an inductively coupled thermal plasma are presented, A simplified model of the plasma is used to determine temperature and velocity distributions from conservation laws and Maxwell equations. Trajectories and evaporation rates of injected particles are calculated. The influence of reduced particle residence time in the plasma an the evaporation behaviour is discussed. Optical emission spectroscopy is applied to measure temperature distributions in the argon and the argon/copper plasma. Radial and axial atomic copper density distributions are derived from the spectroscopic data, A comparison between the results of modelling and spectroscopic measurements is made and limitations of the techniques are shown.