Condensable Supersonic Jet Facility for Analyses of Transient Low-Temperature Gas Kinetics and Plasma Chemistry of Hydrocarbons

LEMPUS-2 facility is designed and built to study processes of cluster formation and plasma-chemical reactions that include atoms, molecules, and clusters, in supersonic jets. The facility is equipped with modern diagnostics tools and molecular-beam, electron-beam, mass-spectrometer, spectrometer, and laser systems for testing and fine-tuning technological processes in a laboratory environment. One of the key advantages of the discussed facility is that in a single system and a single experiment, it combines the tools for the activation of transient and steady-state supersonic flow with self-sustaining or nonself-sustaining discharge, and flow analysis using electron-beam spectroscopy and molecular-beam mass spectroscopy. Dry roughing and high-vacuum pumps enable accurate diagnostics of chemically reacting processes in virtually any gas mixture, including hydrocarbons. A pulsed flow regime controlled by developed in-house fast valves provides an efficient way to examine quasi-stationary flows at fairly high flow rates, with significant material and energy savings. The facility serves a number of purposes, from cluster-surface interaction studies with thin film and surface structure formation, to high-pressure jet expansions that emulate spacecraft nozzles at high altitudes, to technological process development, primarily focused on hydrocarbons. Details of key applications of the facility are presented that include the gas dynamics of cluster jets, the formation of heterogeneous clusters, the study of plasma-chemistry of hydrocarbons, and the thin film deposition.