Regularly-swelling plumes generated in atmospheric pressure argon plasma jet excited by a biased sinusoidal voltage

Far different from conical plumes, regularly-swelling plumes are generated in an atmospheric pressure argon plasma jet excited by a biased sinusoidal voltage at low frequency. Depending on the polarity of bias voltage, the plumes with periodic swells can be solid or hollow. Results indicate that discharge initiates once per voltage cycle, which appears in the negative and positive half cycles for the solid and hollow plumes, respectively. By fast photography, it is found that streamers are involved propagating downstream of the argon flow for the two plumes. Transversely, the streamer diffuses for the solid plume, while it propagates only in the flow periphery for the hollow plume. Due to a high field, intense discharges near the nozzle provide the following swell positions with active species, which can remarkably enhance the discharges there and induce the swells. This formation mechanism of periodic swells is verified through investigating the distance of two adjacent swells as a function of gas flow rate and driving frequency. Moreover, spatial distributions of excited electron temperature and streamer propagation velocity are qualitatively explained based on the mechanism. (paper)