Gas temperature measurements in weakly ionized glow discharges with filtered Rayleigh scattering

We report the first gas temperature measurements in plasmas to our knowledge obtained by filtered Rayleigh scattering (FRS). A narrow-linewidth Ti:sapphire laser is used as the illumination source, and a mercury filter provides strong suppression of elastic background. We perform measurements in weakly ionized glow discharges in pure argon and in an argon-plus-1%-nitrogen mixture. Where possible, we verify the FRS technique by comparing filtered measurements with unfiltered measurements. We present point measurements of axial temperature with uncertainties of less than 5%. We use a planar scheme to obtain radial temperature profiles with uncertainties of 10%. (C) 2002 Optical Society of America.