Study on the Property Evolution of Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Jets in Helium

Nowadays atmospheric pressure plasma jets (APPJs) are being widely applied to many fields and have received growing interests from cold plasma community. A helium APPJ with co-axial double ring electrode configuration is driven by an AC high voltage power with an adjustable frequency of 1–60 kHz. Experiments are conducted for acquiring the electrical and optical properties of APPJ, including the discharge mode, current peak's phase and APPJ's length, etc. Moreover, the actions of Penning effect on APPJ are discussed by adding impurity nitrogen into highly pure helium. The results may contribute to further research and applications of APPJs. (plasma technology)