RÉSUMÉ

A combined experimental/modeling approach has been taken in order to further our understanding of the high-pressure sulfur discharge. This plasma has the appealing property of producing a pleasant visible spectrum and doing so efficiently. Moreover, the spectrum originates entirely from the sulfur dimer. However, very little is known about this new visible light source.
The integrated environment for the construction and execution of plasma models, PLASIMO [1], has been used to model a 1D LTE energy balance of the lamp including radiation transport with the aim of reproducing the observed spectrum [2, 3, 4] Several atomic lines found in the spectrum were used for the direct measurement of temperature [5]. Power interruption experiments were performed and the spectral response was both measured and modeled as a function of wavelength [6].
The LTE model reproduces measured spectra and operational trends well. Average plasma temperatures of 4000 K have been measured and the model is within 10% of this value. The response of the entire spectrum to power interruption also agrees well with measurement. We have found that while the B→X transition in S₂ is the solely responsible for the spectrum, the presence of S₃ is critical to the understanding of the discharge.