Abstract
The experimental work reported here is devoted to the study of the luminous activity of a long dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) afterglow at atmospheric pressure. The discharge plasma is generated in a commercially available (AcXys Technologies) reactor, using a N2 flow of a few tens SL/min, whereas the luminous afterglow when channelled into a quartz tube extends at a distance of 50 cm, finishing in a luminous arrow at the tube's exit. The luminous activity of the afterglow is studied by means of photomultiplier scans and optical emission spectroscopy, revealing an interesting transient phase. An attempt is made to correlate this effect with the active species' creation and destruction mechanisms.