EPJ D – Measurements in the hot spot of a plasma

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Published on 12 October 2010

A group of researchers in Greifswald, Germany, measured the electron concentration and electron temperature in the active discharge zone of a self-organized plasma jet. Self-organized discharge patterns are shown as time averaged top view in the picture.

Miniaturized non-thermal plasma jets are an emerging technique for surface treatments at ambient pressure, such as cleaning, activation, etching, films deposition and more.

The authors of this EPJ D paper used two independent approaches: spectroscopy and a two-dimensional fluid model calculation of a discharge filament. The results from the two methods are consistent and indicate electron concentrations between 2.2 and 3.3×1014 cm-3. This work represents a first step towards a thorough physical description of the discharge dynamics and energy transport to gain a better understanding of self-organization effects in non thermal plasma jets.