Effect of Pulse Rising Time of Pulse dc Voltage on Atmospheric Pressure Non‐Equilibrium Plasma

Pulse direct current (dc) voltage with different pulse rising time t rise have been used to generate atmospheric pressure non‐equilibrium plasmas. However, no quantitative investigation has been reported on how the t rise will affect the plasma characteristics. In this paper, the effect of pulse rising time variable from 4 µs to 100 ns on plasma characteristics is investigated. The experimental results show that, when the t rise is reduced from 4 µs to 140 ns, the length of the plasma plume increases from less than 20 mm to about 70 mm, the peak value of the discharge current increases from about 0.2 A to 1.3 A. The corresponding breakdown voltage increase from less than 4 kV to about 6 kV and the electron temperature increase from 1.25 eV to 1.55 eV. These results confirm that the shorter the pulse rising time is, the more reactive the plasma is. magnified image