Discharge mechanims of sub-microsecond pulsed atmospheric pressure glow discharges

Summary form only given. Nonthermal atmospheric pressure plasmas have attracted much attention for their convenient applications on surface modifications, thin film deposition, biological sterilization and inactivation et al. Most atmospheric pressure glow discharges (APGDs) are generated by sinusoidal excitation with repetition frequency from kilo hertz to mega hertz. Recently, high voltage pulses with duration less than one microsecond are apply for APGDs, which demonstrated the reduced discharge power consumption and improved discharge stability even without dielectric barriers. Currently, the understanding of discharge mechanism in terms of gas breakdown and discharge evolution are still limited due to the ultra-fast (sub-microsecond) temporal evolution of discharge, which restricts the experimental diagnostics. [1,2] Here, a one-dimensional fluid model was developed for numerical studies of pulsed APGDs.