Plasma bullet propagation and reflection from metallic and dielectric targets

Abstract In this paper, we discuss the results from the computational investigation of the effect of a metal grounded target, metal target at a floating potential and dielectric targets (conductive and non-conductive) on the plasma bullet propagation and reflection. We show that the intensity of the primary ionization wave (IW) is the highest for the metal target, while it is significantly lower for the non-conductive dielectric. For the conductive dielectric, the wave intensity is greater than that for the non-conductive dielectrics, but lower than for a metal target. After the primarily forward IW touches the target, the reflected waves are observed for all the targets under investigation. For a metal target the reflected IW changes its direction and transforms into the secondary forward wave. We did not observe secondary forward IWs for dielectric targets. For dielectric targets, the reflected waves gradually decayed without changing their direction. The ‘stopping’ path for the reflected wave is introduced and the increase/decrease of this path is discussed in dependence on the target properties.