Characterization of plasma properties that underpin kinetic processes in nanosecond repetitively pulsed discharges (NRPDs) is necessary to understand and manipulate the behavior of these discharges for a wide variety of applications. Here, the neutral gas temperature in N₂ and 50% N₂/50% Ar NRPDs during the discharge is determined by characterizing the rotational temperature of rovibrational spectra from the N₂ 2nd positive system. At the conditions investigated, it is shown that the timescale for rotational–translational relaxation is shorter than the effective lifetime of the N₂(C) state, thereby, rendering the rotational temperature measurements a reasonable representation of the background gas temperature. The measurements show that the translational temperature of ground state nitrogen molecules does not increase significantly above ambient temperature during the discharge generated at a constant pressure of 20 Torr, 10 kHz pulse repetition frequency, and pulse energy of 50 μJ. An absorption based detection technique with a 2 ns time-resolution used to measure the translational temperature history of the metastable argon atoms (Ar(1s₃)) in the N₂/Ar NRPDs shows that the Ar(1s₃) atoms and the neutral background gas are in thermal non-equilibrium during the discharge. Furthermore, the addition of nitrogen gas is shown to significantly reduce the translational energy enhancement of the metastable argon atoms produced in the N₂/Ar discharges compared to that in pure argon discharges.

表征纳秒级重复脉冲放电（NRPD）动力学过程的等离子体特性，对于理解和操纵这些放电在各种应用中的行为而言是必不可少的。在此，放电中的N ₂和50％N ₂ /50％Ar NRPDs中的中性气体温度通过表征来自N ₂第二正系统的振动光谱的旋转温度来确定。在所研究的条件下，表明旋转和平移松弛的时间尺度比N ₂的有效寿命短（C）状态，从而使旋转温度测量值可以合理地表示背景气体温度。测量结果表明，在以20 Torr恒定压力，10 kHz脉冲重复频率和50μJ脉冲能量产生的放电过程中，基态氮分子的平移温度不会明显高于环境温度。基于吸收的2 ns时间分辨率检测技术用于测量N ₂ / Ar NRPDs中亚稳氩原子（Ar（1s ₃））的平移温度历史，表明Ar（1s ₃）原子和中性背景气体在放电过程中处于热不平衡状态。此外，与纯氩放电相比，添加氮气显示出显着降低了在N ₂ / Ar放电中产生的亚稳氩原子的转化能增强。