CN emission in active nitrogen. I. Enhanced violet emission at “low” microwave discharge power

Relative intensity measurements of CN violet emission in flowing, prepurified active nitrogen, both alone and in the presence of added mercury vapor, were obtained under a variety of microwave discharge power inputs. The results strongly suggest that excitation of ground state CN can be primarily attributed to collisional energy transfer from vibrationally excited N₂(X¹Σ_g⁺).