Operating characteristics of open discharge-based plasma switches with helium, nitrogen and oxygen

Abstract

Investigations of the operating characteristics of plasma switches based on the open discharge with the counter-propagating electron beams in helium, nitrogen, oxygen, and also in their mixtures have been carried out. In spite of the differences in the mechanisms of discharge burning for various conditions, which leads to the differences in switching characteristics, devices with switching times of 0.28–1.8 ns for design without a drift space and 1–2.5 ns with it are implemented. Even at a moderate voltage U ∼ 10 kV the obtained switching efficiency is in the range of 76%–95%, which exceeds values for the other gas-discharge devices, operating at high pulse repetition rate with ∼1 ns pulse leading front.

Recent progress of atmospheric and room‐temperature plasma as a new and promising mutagenesis technology

“…At present, helium is the most widely used carrier gas in the application of ARTP technology. It requires only a small amount of energy input to generate stable plasma discharge at atmospheric pressure and excite a plasma jet with high concentrations of reactive particles (excited helium atoms, hydrogen atoms, and oxygen atoms), 34,35 playing an important role in the field of microbial mutagenesis. In addition to this, the use of gases such as argon, air, oxygen, and helium has also been reported elsewhere 17,18,36 .…”