Injection of plasma plume into radio frequency atmospheric pressure glow discharge

Abstract

The influence of a high voltage sub-microsecond pulsed plasma plume on a radio frequency discharge at atmospheric pressure is studied experimentally. The discharge characteristics and dynamics of pulsed discharge and radio frequency discharge are characterized in terms of voltage and current waveforms and spatio-temporal evolution of discharge. It is found that the plasma bullet generated by pulsed discharge can inject into the radio frequency discharge region with the average travelling speed of 70 km/s. The radio frequency discharge intensity is elevated to be 3 times higher as the plasma bullet penetrating the interelectrode gap of radio frequency discharge. The enhancement is attributed to the injection of energetic electrons by the plasma bullet, which is demonstrated by the temporal evolution of discharge image intensity and optical emission spectroscopy intensity.

Ignition dynamics of radio frequency discharge in atmospheric pressure cascade glow discharge

“…[17] The injection of a pulsed discharge into a continuous RF discharge in a plasma jet experiment was explored, and successfully increased the intensity of the RF discharge. [18] To improve the efficiency of plasma applications, the characteristics of the pulsed-voltage modulated RF need to be thoroughly investigated.…”

Temporal evolution of atmospheric cascade glow discharge with pulsed discharge and radio frequency discharge

“…Recently, the pulse modulated (PM) RF glow discharge was developed to manipulate the discharge characteristics in terms of discharge intensity and gas temperature, which were dependent on the discharge ignition dynamics of RF discharge [12]. By introducing a pulsed discharge between the successive RF discharge bursts in pulsed modulated RF discharges, the discharge is named as cascade discharge and the ignition of RF discharge is enhanced by pulsed discharge with reduced ignition time [13,14]. On the other hand, the uniformity of atmospheric glow discharge is not well addressed, especially along the electrode surface, which is an important issue in most applications [15,16].…”