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How would I ionize 0.01% of 20g of argon gas, (which is 3.0149*10^19 atoms, which each lose 1 electron) using an RMF (rotating magnetic field), or an AC electromagnetic field? Or can you suggest a different method of ionizaton.

Qmechanic
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Stevovoness
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    What about heating it? – G. Smith Nov 30 '19 at 23:16
  • This is routinely done in argon inductively coupled plasma (ICP) instrumentation used world-wide for chemical analysis purposes. And you can simply use a Tesla coil for exciting argon spectral lamps and the like. – Ed V Nov 03 '21 at 13:33
  • Plasma globes are 15USD these days, but if watch out if you got heart issues as it does just discharge onto the table – ChemEng Jul 06 '22 at 02:48

2 Answers2

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@Above Threshold mentioned DC discharge. I would just like to add that it is better to do that at a low pressure (under 1 mbar). The required voltage may be of the order of 300 V for a gap of 3 cm (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325060389_Study_of_DC_Breakdown_Voltage_in_Low_Pressure_Argon_and_Nitrogen_Gases_for_Several_Electrode_Gap)

akhmeteli
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I can answer your question given that you can use a strong laser field, which is essentially an AC electromagnetic field. Refer to this answer that I made. The link is about four different ionization processes with light. You can ionize any atom either with a high frequency photon or with many photons with low frequency.

When a high frequency photon hit an argon atom, then an electron in the argon can absorb the photon with a certain probability. On the other hand, when a low frequency photon hit an argon atom, effectively nothing happens to the argon atom. When many low frequency photon hit the argon atom at the same time, however, can ionize or excite the atom. I refer to the link above. I guess this is the most stable and predictable way to ionize 0.01 % of 20 g of argon gas each lose one electron, if you can use strong laser field (like a few watt class pulsed laser).

You can also make discharge or breakdown of argon gas to make it plasma. You can use discharge with DC voltage or you can use laser to induce breakdown. In this case, however, I am not sure whether argon atom will lose one electron for each.

Above Threshold
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