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A combined Thomson-Rayleigh scattering device is discussed. It consists of a Nd:YAG laser as a light source in combination with a multichannel detection technique consisting of a gated light amplifier in combination with an optical multichannel analyzer. Special attention is focused on the analysis of the measured spectra. Including convolution methods and taking into account weak coherent effects increases the dynamic range and the accuracy of the measured electron density n, and temperature T, and neutral particle density no. Accuracies of 1%-4% for n,, 2%-6% for T, and lo%-50% for n, depending on the plasma condition are obtained. The dynamic range for n, is 7 x 1017-1021 m -3, for no is 1020-1023 m -3 and for T, is

Th's paper concerns the behaviox of neavy particles in an argon plasma expanding from a cascaded arc. The pasma 's characterize0 Jsing high-acc-racy spatially resolved Thomson-Rayleigh measJrements. Iris shown that the expans'on of tne neavy particles, neutral part'cles and :ons, is cose to adiaDatic and that three-particle recombnaion has a small effect on the ion density. The measurements

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A new calibration method to obtain the electron density from Thomson scattering on an inductively coupled plasma is discussed. Raman scattering of nitrogen is used for recovering the Rayleigh scattering signal. This has the advantage that no corrections are necessary for stray light, like with other calibration methods, using the direct measured Rayleigh scattering signal on a well-known gas. It is shown that electron densities and electron temperatures can be measured with an accuracy of about 15% in density and of about 150 K in temperature. 0 1995 American Institute of Physics.