Dynamics of a guided streamer (‘plasma bullet’) in a helium jet in air at atmospheric pressure
- 27 November 2012
- journal article
- research article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
Abstract
It has been demonstrated experimentally that a non-equilibrium plasma column can be generated by discharge pulses in a helium jet surrounded by atmospheric-pressure air. The 'plasma jet' can be longer than 10 cm and fast imaging shows that most of the light emitted by the plasma jet is produced in a small 'plasma bullet' that propagates along the helium jet at speeds of several tens of km s(-1). With the help of a simple fluid model of the discharge, we show that the plasma jet is very similar to a cathode streamer (ionization wave) guided by the helium jet. We discuss the properties of the helium streamer and of the plasma channel behind the streamer head as a function of parameters such as electrode geometry, voltage pulse waveform and preionization density. The model can reproduce qualitatively and explain most of the features observed experimentally.This publication has 45 references indexed in Scilit:
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