Effects of driving voltage frequency on the discharge characteristics of atmospheric dielectric-barrier-discharge plasma jet

Abstract

We present here the analysis of the discharge characteristics of a He dielectric-barrier-discharge (DBD) plasma jet operated in the frequency range of 0.6 to 30 kHz under an open-air condition. Discharge strength is sensitive to driving voltage frequency, and an increasing driving frequency induces a weak pulse discharge with a small plume length. We also performed time-resolved optical emission measurements in a transient pulse discharge driven by various voltage frequencies. A strong optical emission from O atoms is observed near the quartz-tube outlet at a low driving voltage frequency of about 5 kHz, where more than 90% of the total O emission intensity is detected in the after-discharge period. The observations indicate that low-frequency discharge operation can generate a large number of reactive excited O atoms near the quartz-tube outlet, and this is ascribed to the chemical reactions in the after-discharge period.