Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy: application in a study of transient species in discharge and ablation plasma

The present dissertation consists of two thematically related parts. The first one (includes two publications) deals with the study of chemical pro- cesses and spectroscopy of highly reactive particles produced in the discharge plasma. This part includes the analysis of ro-vibronic CN radical transitions in the infrared region and the study of chemical reactions in pulsed dischar- ges. The discharge was used as a tool for research of decomposition of simple precursors (acetonitrile, formamide and BrCN) and the subsequent formation of intermediates and reaction products in plasma. The obtained experimental results were interpreted using a numerical model developed in context of this work and used to simulate the kinetics of the studied systems. The second part (includes seven works) is aimed at high-resolved spectro- scopy of metals in the ablation plasma. A total of six different metals were studied: Au, Ag, Cu, Cs, K and Na. The main motivation for spectroscopic research on metals in the infrared region is to obtain information on atomic metals transitions, which are particularly important for astronomical identi- fication of lines in the spectra of stars and their spectroscopic assignments. Each publication contains a summary of the analyzed atomic transitions of which a considerable portion had not..