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Updated: Oct 13, 2025

An Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Setup to Investigate the Reactive Species Formation
Published on: November 3, 2016
Disrupting the spatio-temporal symmetry of the electron dynamics in atmospheric pressure plasmas by voltage waveform
Andrew R Gibson1,2, Zoltán Donkó3, Layla Alelyani2
1Institute for Electrical Engineering and Plasma Technology Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.
Abstract:
Single frequency, geometrically symmetric Radio-Frequency (rf) driven atmospheric pressure plasmas exhibit temporally and spatially symmetric patterns of electron heating, and consequently, charged particle densities and fluxes. Using a combination of phase-resolved optical emission spectroscopy and kinetic plasma simulations, we demonstrate that tailored voltage waveforms consisting of multiple rf harmonics induce targeted disruption of these symmetries. This confines the electron heating to small regions of time and space and enables the electron energy distribution function to be tailored.
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