We developed a Global Model for N2O plasmas valid for applications in various power, gas flow rate, and pressure regimes. Besides energy losses from electron collisions with N2O, it takes into consideration those due to molecular N2 and O2 and to atomic N and O species. Positive atomic N+ and O+ and molecular N2O+, , and have been treated as separate species and also negative O？ ions. The latter confer an electronegative character to the discharge, calling for modified plasma sheath and plasma potential formulas. Electron density and temperature and all species densities have been evaluated, hence the ionization and dissociation percentages of N2O, N2, and O2 molecules and the plasma electronegativity. The model is extended to deal with N2/O2 mixtures feedings, notably with air. Rate coefficients and model results are discussed and compared with those from available theoretical and experimental work on ICP and glow discharge devices. 1. Introduction The present work aims to characterize N2O fed plasma devices working in various configurations, as plasma reactors, hollow cathodes, and plasma thrusters, by means of a Global (volume averaged) Model (GM). The well-known GM describes a plasma device in its entirety, taking into consideration the atomic and molecular properties of the used gas or mixtures, together with the device geometry and the prevailing physical conditions. Examples and general properties of such models can be found in standard handbooks [1]. Obviously, the problem of N2O plasmas description becomes more complex than in the case of a monoatomic inert gas as the argon, studied previously for inductively coupled plasmas (ICP) including plasma reactor (PR) and for helicon plasma thruster (HPT) applications, by means of an adequate GM (see [2] and references therein). In [2] the HPT plasma was separated in two regions, an external, cooler region encompassing about 90% of the plasma cross section area with low ionization percentage named the “mantle” region and an internal hotter one, the “core” region, where the plasma is mostly ionized. Conditions in the “mantle” region are rather similar to those of the PR, both for Ar and for N2O and N2/O2 mixtures feedings. In the present paper only ICP and glow discharge (GD) results are given, which are also useful in modeling the “mantle” region of HPT. The molecular structure of the N2O and that of the molecular products examined here reveal vibrationally excited states that have to be taken into account in addition to the electronic ones. Because of the presence of molecular species, the
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