Ionization wave propagation on a micro cavity plasma array
Abstract
Microcavity plasma arrays of inverse pyramidal cavities have been fabricated in p-Si wafers. Each cavity acts as a microscopic dielectric barrier discharge. Operated at atmospheric pressure in argon and excited with high voltage at about 10 kHz, each cavity develops a localized microplasma. Experiments have shown a strong interaction of individual cavities, leading to the propagation of wave-like optical emission structures along the surface of the array. This phenomenon is numerically investigated using computer simulation. The observed ionization wave propagates with a speed of about 5 km/s, which agrees well the experimental findings. It is found that the wave propagation is due to sequential contributions of a drift of electrons followed by drift of ions between cavities seeded by photoemission of electrons by the plasma in adjacent cavities.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1104.5579,
title = {Ionization wave propagation on a micro cavity plasma array},
author = {Alexander Wollny and Torben Hemke and Markus Gebhardt and Ralf Peter Brinkmann and Henrik Boettner and Joerg Winter and Volker Schulz-von der Gathen and Zhongmin Xiong and Mark J. Kushner and Thomas Mussenbrock},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1104.5579},
year = {2015}
}