Recent experiments have demonstrated that a freely localized 100 GHz microwave discharge can propagate towards the microwave source with high speed, forming a complex pattern of self-organized filaments. We present three-dimensional simulations of the formation and propagation of such patterns that reveal more information on their nature and interaction with the electromagnetic waves. The developed three-dimensional Maxwell-plasma solver permits the study of different forms of incident field polarization. Results for linear and circular polarization of the wave are presented and comparisons with recent experiments show a good overall agreement. The three dimensional simulations provide a quantitative analysis of the parameters controlling the time and length scales of the strongly non-linear plasma dynamics and could be useful for potential microwave plasma applications such as aerodynamic flow and combustion control.
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Kourtzanidis et al. (2014) studied this question.