Experimental investigations on the propagation of the plasma jet in the open air

The fundamental of the generation and propagation of the atmospheric pressure nonequilibrium plasma jets has recently attracted significant interests. In this paper, investigations on the effects of the parameters of the pulsed dc voltages on the optical emission intensity of the plasma jet and the bullet propagation behavior are carried out based on the temporal-spatial resolved optical emission spectroscopy measurements and the high-speed photography. It is found that, with the increase in the applied voltage, the bullet propagates out from the nozzle earlier and accelerates to higher peak-velocities. The increase in the pulse frequency exerts no significant influences on the optical emission of the plasma jet and the bullet propagation velocity. But it can induce the bullet propagates out from the nozzle earlier. Besides, it is interesting to notice that, with the increase in the pulse width in the beginning, the bullet propagates out from the nozzle with longer delay time. However, when the pulse width is increased to be more than 100 mu s, the delay time of the bullet propagating out from the nozzle becomes much shorter. On the other hand, with the increase in the pulse width, the optical emission intensity of the plasma jet drops and the maximum bullet velocity decreases too. Detailed analysis shows that it may be due to the accumulation of the charges and radicals, which can shorten the prebreakdown of the discharge inside the syringe and result in the bullet propagating out earlier from the nozzle. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi: 10.1063/1.3369538]