Investigation of the effects of pulse repetition frequency in a mixed electric field on a SDBD-like plasma jet.

In this paper, the design, performance and characterization of a low temperature argon plasma jet with a Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharge (SDBD)-like structure are presented. Based on this structure, the argon plasma jet is generated in a SDBD-like structure with a mixed electric field. SDBD-like structure, refers to the plasma jet generated by the surface dielectric barrier discharge. The effects of high frequency electric pulse as the main igniter for plasma jet generation and low frequency sinusoidal electric field in order to modify the dynamic behavior of plasma jet are investigated in this paper. The effect of these variations on the plasma jet along with the decrease in pulse repetition frequency were recorded by Schlieren imaging method. This study revealed the important role of decreasing the pulse repetition frequency in the mixed electric field in the SDBD-like plasma jet structure. Increasing the cross-sectional area of the plasma colliding with the target surface is the most important advantage of this structure for the generation of plasma jets. Also, the trend of decreasing plasma column continuity with increasing pulse repetition frequency is another result of this study. Under these conditions, the diameter of the cross section of the plasma jet increases to 9 mm without increasing the consumption of more electrical power and with equal jet length. Finally, the surface hydrophilicity was measured after treatment by plasma jet and the operation resulted in a super-hydrophilic surface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]