The secondary ionization wave and characteristic map of surface discharge plasma in a wide time scale

Abstract

The surface discharge is the elementary process in a broad range of low temperature plasma applications. Variation of voltage profiles with different time scales leads to the redistribution of deposited energy as well as electro-hydrodynamic forces of surface discharges, while the mechanism and scaling law is still unknown. On the basis of theoretical and numerical analysis, we show that a secondary surface ionization wave forms during the voltage rising slope when electron density decreases to a critical level while the voltage is still rising. A characteristic map of energy and electro-hydrodynamics force in time scales between 1 ns and 0.1 s at atmospheric pressure is proposed, opening the door towards the target-directed design of surface discharges.