SPATIALAND TEMPORAL BEHAVIOROFA PLASMABULLETLAUNCHED BYAPULSEDCOLD PLASMA DEVICE

Becauseoftheir ability toachieve enhanced plasma chemistry atlowtemperatures, pulsed plasmas arevery attractive inapplications thatrequire a richchemical environment, suchascombustion. Here, wereport onacold plasma jetlaunched byapulsed plasma device (the Plasma Pencil). Theplasma pencil cangenerate relatively long plasma plumesatatmospheric pressure [1-2]. Itexhibits plasma controllability and stability, room temperature and atmospheric pressure operation, aswellaslowpower consumption. These aredesirable features ofaplasma source that canbeusedreliably inmaterial processing, including biomedical applications. Inthiswork,we present the correlation between current-voltage characteristics andfast photography oftheplasma plume that isinfact asmall bullet like volume ofplasma traveling atunusually highvelocities. A mechanism oftheplasma bullet traveling underverylow electric field conditions will bediscussed. Thisisbased ona streamer modelwherephotoionization plays animportant role toexplain theplume dynamical behavior.