No abstract

Direct current glow discharges have been operated in atmospheric air by using 100 μm microhollow cathode discharges as plasma cathodes. The glow discharges were operated at currents of up to 22 mA, corresponding to current densities of 3.8 A/cm2 and at average electric fields of 1.2 kV/cm. Electron densities in the glow are in the range from 1012 to 1013 cm−3. Varying the current of the microhollow cathode discharge allows us to control the current in the atmospheric pressure glow discharge. Large volume atmospheric pressure air plasmas can be generated by operating microhollow cathode discharges in parallel.

Stabilization and control of a high-pressure glow discharge by means of a microhollow cathode discharge has been demonstrated. The microhollow cathode discharge, which is sustained between two closely spaced electrodes with openings of approximately 100 m diam, serves as plasma cathode for the high-pressure glow. Small variations in the microhollow cathode discharge voltage generate large variations in the microhollow cathode discharge current and consequently in the glow discharge current. In this mode of operation the electrical characteristic of this system of coupled discharges resembles that of a vacuum triode. Using the microhollow cathode discharge as plasma cathode it was possible to generate stable, direct current discharges in argon up to atmospheric pressure, with estimated electron densities in the range from 10 11 to 10 12 cm Ϫ3 . The recently demonstrated parallel operation of these discharges indicates the potential of this technique for the generation of large volume plasmas at high gas pressure through superposition of individual glow discharges.

No abstract

Microhollow cathode discharges are high-pressure, nonequilibrium gas discharges between a hollow cathode and a planar or hollow anode with electrode dimensions in the 100 μm range. The large concentration of high-energy electrons, in combination with the high-gas density favors excimer formation. Excimer emission was observed in xenon and argon, at wavelengths of 128 and 172 nm, respectively, and in argon fluoride and xenon chloride, at 193 and 308 nm. The radiant emittance of the excimer radiation was found to increase monotonically with pressure. However, due to the decrease in source size with pressure, the efficiency (ratio of excimer radiant power to input electrical power), has for xenon and argon fluoride a maximum at ∼400 Torr. The maximum efficiency is between 6% and 9% for xenon, and ∼2% for argon fluoride.

An infrared heterodyne interferometer has been used to measure the spatial distribution of the electron density in direct current, atmospheric pressure discharges in air. Spatial resolution of the electron density in the high-pressure glow discharge with characteristic dimensions on the order of 100 µm required the use of a CO 2 laser at a wavelength of 10.6 µm. For this wavelength and electron densities greater than 10 11 cm −3 the index of refraction of the atmospheric air plasma is mainly determined by heavy particles rather than electrons. The electron contribution to the refractive index was separated from that of the heavy particles by taking the different relaxation times of the two particle species into account. With the discharge operated in a repetitive pulsed mode, the initial rapid change of the refractive index was assumed to be due to the increase in electron density, whereas the following slower rise is due to the decrease in gas density caused by gas heating. By reducing the time between pulses, direct current conditions were approached, and the electron density as well as the gas density, and gas temperature, respectively, were obtained through extrapolation. A computation inversion method was used to determine the radial distribution of the plasma parameters in the cylindrical discharge. For a direct-current filamentary discharge in air, at a current of 10 mA, the electron density was found to be 10 13 cm −3 in the centre, decreasing to half of this value at a radial distance of 0.21 mm. Gaussian temperature profiles with σ = 1.1 mm and maximum values of 1000-2000 K in the centre were also obtained with, however, larger error margins than for electron densities.

No abstract

The application of nanosecond voltage pulses to weakly ionized atmospheric pressure plasmas allows heating the electrons without considerably increasing the gas temperature, provided that the duration of the pulses is less than the critical time for the development of glow-to-arc transitions. The shift in the electron energy distribution towards higher energies causes a temporary increase in the ionization rate, and consequently a strong rise in electron density. This increase in electron density is reflected in an increased decay time of the plasma after the pulse application. Experiments in atmospheric pressure air glow discharges with gas temperatures of approximately 2000 K have been performed to explore the electron heating effect. Measurements of the temporal development of the voltage across the discharge and the optical emission in the visible after applying a 10 ns high voltage pulse to a weakly ionized steady state plasma demonstrated increasing plasma decay times from tens of nanoseconds to microseconds when the pulsed electric field was raised from 10 to 40 kV/cm. Temporally resolved photographs of the discharge have shown that the plasma column expands during this process. The nonlinear electron heating effect can be used to reduce the power consumption in a repetitively operated air plasma considerably compared to a dc plasma operation. Besides allowing power reduction, pulsed electron heating also has the potential to enhance plasma processes, which require elevated electron energies, such as excimer generation for ultraviolet lamps.