Propagation of an electromagnetic wave in an atmospheric pressure plasma: Numerical solutions

Abstract

The propagation of an electromagnetic wave in an atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) layer is described numerically with an integral-differential wave equation. When the wave passes through the APP layer, the amplitude and phase of the transmission wave electric field are obviously modulated by the electron density and the collision frequency between the electrons and neutrals in the APP. The dependences of the wave behaviors, such as the phase shift, the coefficient of the transmission, reflection and absorption, on these APP layer characteristics are presented. Appleton’s equation is derived from the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin solution of the integral-differential wave equation and is compared with the numerical solution.