Complex dynamic behaviors of nonequilibrium atmospheric dielectric-barrier discharges

Copyright 2006 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the authors and the American Institute of Physics. This article appeared in the Journal of Applied Physics and may be found at: http://link.aip.org/link/?JAPIAU/100/063304/1In this paper, a one-dimensional fluid model is used to investigate complex dynamic behaviors of a nonequilibrium dielectric-barrier discharge (DBD) in atmospheric helium. By projecting its evolution trajectory in the three-dimensional phase space of gas voltage, discharge current density, and electrode-surface charge density, the atmospheric DBD is shown to undergo a sequence of complex bifurcation processes when the applied voltage is increased from prebreakdown to many times of the breakdown voltage. Once the gas voltage exceeds the breakdown voltage, the discharge plasma is found to acquire negative differential conductivity and as a result its stability is compromised. For atmospheric DBD, however, the resulting low plasma stability is mitigated by a rapid accumulation of surface charges on the electrodes, thus allowing the atmospheric DBD to retain their character as a glow discharge. At certain values of the applied voltage, a highly complex phenomenon of period multiplication is observed in which the period of the discharge current is three times that of the applied voltage. This suggests that nonequilibrium atmospheric DBD may support evolution patterns that are quasiperiodic or even chaotic. These complex dynamic behaviors are likely to be critical to a full understanding of plasma stability of nonequilibrium atmospheric discharges and to the development of their instability control strategies

Plasma–liquid interactions: a review and roadmap

Plasma–liquid interactions represent a growing interdisciplinary area of research involving plasma science, fluid dynamics, heat and mass transfer, photolysis, multiphase chemistry and aerosol science. This review provides an assessment of the state-of-the-art of this multidisciplinary area and identifies the key research challenges. The developments in diagnostics, modeling and further extensions of cross section and reaction rate databases that are necessary to address these challenges are discussed. The review focusses on non-equilibrium plasmas