Water vapour concentrations are measured using the optical absorption of a Zeeman-split emission line of an argon discharge lamp. When a longitudinal magnetic field of the proper magnitude is used to split the emission line, two components of opposite circular polarization are produced: one coincident, and one off-resonance with respect to a water vapour absorption line at 10 687.36 cm−1. Diffe...

Decontamination treatments of surfaces are performed on bacterial spores, albumin and brain homogenate used as models of biological contaminations in a low-pressure, inductively coupled plasma reactor operated with water-vapour-based gas mixtures. It is shown that removal of contamination can be achieved using pure H2O or Ar/H2O mixtures at low temperatures with removal rates comparable to oxyg...