Optical emission spectroscopic diagnostics of atmospheric-pressure plasmas: a combined approach using automated continuum–line decomposition and lines integration
Optical emission spectroscopic diagnostics of atmospheric-pressure plasmas require separation of continuum and line radiation, yet existing methods demand manual parameter tuning and can yield nonphysical results such as negative baselines. This study presents a fully automated workflow for spectral separation and line-intensity integration that prioritizes physical validity over mere numerical accuracy. The Recursive Interpolation between Local Minima (RIbLM) and Joining Tangent Lines (JTL) methods, proposed in this study, are evaluated on measured and synthetic atmospheric-pressure plasma (APP) spectra and compared with established techniques from the \texttt{pybaselines} library. RIbLM employs log-domain interpolation to recover the continuum over 250--900~nm while preserving non-negativity. An automated Voigt profile fitting approach is also developed for line-intensity extraction. The combined workflow enables consistent spectral decomposition, facilitating retrieval of electron energy distribution functions and robust, unsupervised processing of large experimental datasets for practical plasma diagnostics.