See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/254499697

Plasma jets and plasma bullets

Article  in  Plasma Sources Science and Technology · June 2012

DOI: 10.1088/0963-0252/21/3/030201

CITATIONS READS

33 415

3 authors, including:

Biswa Ganguly Robert F. Hicks

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base University of California, Los Angeles
198 PUBLICATIONS   3,113 CITATIONS    210 PUBLICATIONS   8,014 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

UCLA Graduate Research View project

Fluorinated Films View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Biswa Ganguly on 29 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Home Search Collections Journals About Contact us My IOPscience

Plasma jets and plasma bullets

This content has been downloaded from IOPscience. Please scroll down to see the full text.

2012 Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 030201

(http://iopscience.iop.org/0963-0252/21/3/030201)

View the table of contents for this issue, or go to the journal homepage for more

Download details:

IP Address: 180.180.121.156
This content was downloaded on 09/10/2013 at 05:42

Please note that terms and conditions apply.

IOP PUBLISHING PLASMA SOURCES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 (2012) 030201 (5pp) doi:10.1088/0963-0252/21/3/030201

EDITORIAL

Plasma jets and and plasma bullets

Plasma plumes, or plasma jets, belong to a large family of gas discharges whereby
Guest Editors the discharge plasma is extended beyond the plasma generation region into the
M G Kong, B N Ganguly and surrounding ambience, either by a field (e.g. electromagnetic, convective gas
R F Hicks flow, or shock wave) or a gradient of a directionless physical quantity (e.g.
particle density, pressure, or temperature). This physical extension of a plasma
plume gives rise to a strong interaction with its surrounding environment, and the
interaction alters the properties of both the plasma and the environment, often in a
nonlinear and dynamic fashion. The plasma is therefore not confined by defined
physical walls, thus extending opportunities for material treatment applications as
well as bringing in new challenges in science and technology associated with
complex open-boundary problems. Some of the most common examples may be
found in dense plasmas with very high dissipation of externally supplied energy
(e.g. in electrical, optical or thermal forms) and often in or close to thermal
equilibrium. For these dense plasmas, their characteristics are determined
predominantly by strong physical forces of different fields, such as electrical,
magnetic, thermal, shock wave, and their nonlinear interactions [1]. Common to
these dense plasma plumes are significant macroscopic plasma movement and
considerable decomposition of solid materials (e.g. vaporization). Their
applications are numerous and include detection of elemental traces, synthesis of
high-temperature materials and welding, laser–plasma interactions, and
relativistic jets in particle accelerators and in space [2]–[4].
Scientific challenges in the understanding of plasma jets are exciting and
multidisciplinary, involving interweaving transitions of all four states of matter,
and their technological applications are wide-ranging and growing rapidly. Using
the Web of Science database, a search for journal papers on non-fusion plasma
jets reveals that a long initial phase up to 1990 with only 31 papers per year on
average, and a total of some 1300 papers, precedes a considerable growth of some
35–50% in research activity every five years, over the last 20 years or so. As
shown in the table, the annual dissemination of the field is more than 1600 papers
and the total number of papers is in excess of 20 000. This upwards trajectory is
typical of a strong and growing subject area in physical science, with considerable
capacity in both fundamental science and applications.

Period Number of papers Papers per annum

1948–1990 1300 31
1991–1995 2279 456
1996–2000 3447 689
2001–2005 4571 914
2006–2010 6640 1328
2011 1658

0963-0252/12/030201+05$33.00 1 © 2012 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK & the USA
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 (2012) 030201 Editorial

In many of the dense plasma jets discussed above, strong physical forces
generated by the plasma are often desired and this favours plasma generation at
elevated gas pressure, including atmospheric pressure, which favours a high level
of gas ionization. Historically it has been challenging to reduce and control the
strong physical forces in high-pressure plasmas for applications where these are
unwanted, for example, surface modification of polymeric sheets [5]. Indeed,
there is a real need for a vast range of material processing applications at
temperatures below 100◦ C (or below 400 K) and this favours
atmospheric-pressure plasma jets sustained far from thermal equilibrium with the
dissipated electrical energy largely used not in heat generation but in unleashing
non-equilibrium chemical reactions. The long-standing difficulty of effectively
controlling the level of gas ionization at atmospheric pressure was overcome by
the technological breakthrough of achieving atmospheric-pressure glow
discharges in the late 1980s [6]. A related challenge stemming from high
collisionality of atmospheric-pressure plasmas (v  ω0 ) means that large-area
plasmas sustained between parallel-plate electrodes are very susceptible to strong
plasma instabilities when molecular gases are introduced for processing
applications. This led to an effective technological solution in the early to late
1990s of confining atmospheric plasmas in a small volume of plasma generation
(i.e. with a small volume-to-surface ratio) and then extending it towards a
downstream sample [7]–[9]. These are among the first low-temperature
atmospheric plasmas aimed particularly at the exploitation of their ability to
invoke the active and rich reactive chemistry close to ambient temperature. The
main applications of these early devices are precision surface modification of
low-temperature dielectric materials, for example thin film deposition and etching
[7]–[9]. Variations of the early plasma jets include atmospheric plasma sheet jets
[10] for the treatment of largely planar objects (e.g. polymeric sheets) as well as
large arrays of many plasma jets for the treatment of complex-structured objects
(e.g. surgical tools and open human wounds) [11]. As a material processing
technology, the sub-100◦ C atmospheric-pressure plasma jet has benefited over the
years from many innovations.
Whilst a detailed account and analysis of these is clearly outside the scope of
this Editorial, it is worth stating that there are different avenues with which to
maintain a moderate electron density at the plasma core so as to keep the gas
temperature at the sample point below a ceiling level. Most of the early studies
employed excitation at radio frequencies above 10 MHz, at which electrons are
largely confined in the plasma generation region, and this limits the current flow
to and gas heating in the plume region of the plasma jet. Other techniques of
current limitation have since been shown to be effective, including the use of
dielectric barriers across a very large frequency range of 1 kHz–50 MHz,
sub-microsecond pulses sustained at kHz frequencies, pulse-modulated radio
frequencies and dual-frequency excitation [12]–[15]. These and other techniques
have considerably advanced the atmospheric-pressure plasma jet technology.
The period of some 15 years since the above-mentioned early studies has
witnessed a considerable and exciting growth in terms of new phenomena
observed, new physics and chemistry uncovered, new plasma jet sources
conceived, and new applications developed. Examples include the observations of
plasma bullets on a nanosecond scale [16], the similarity of plasma bullets to
streamers [17], arrays of plasma jets as metamaterials [18], and a rapid increase of
applications in biomedicine [19]. However the considerable growth in the
research of plasma jets has not been adequately supported, so far, by a sound
fundamental underpinning, partly resulting from a somewhat underdevelopment
of effective diagnostics and modelling tools. Recognizing the critical importance
of basic science for future growth of low-temperature plasma jet technology, this
special issue on plasma jets and bullets aims to address some of the most
important fundamental questions.

2
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 (2012) 030201 Editorial

Many of the special issue papers continue the established line of investigation to
characterize the formation of plasma bullets, using typically ultrafast imaging,
electrical detection including electric field and plasma conductivity measurement,
and optical emission spectrometry [20]–[26]. These offer strong experimental
evidence for the well-known hypothesis that a plasma jet is a form of streamer,
and that the ionization wave plays a critical role in their formation. The interaction
of two parallel plasma jets [27] and manipulation of plasma jet characteristics
[28, 29] are also reported using a similar combination of experimental techniques.
Some of the common characteristics of plasma jets are summarized in a review
paper in this special issue [30]. A somewhat different line of investigation is
employed in a detailed experimental characterization of deterministic chaos in
atmospheric plasma jets [31], one of the few non-bullet modes of plasma jets.
Although chaos in ionized gases have been observed in other types of discharge
plasmas, their applications have not so far been linked to material processing
applications, possibly because chaotic patterns of reaction chemistry could be
undesirable for sample–sample reproducibility of application efficacy.
Nevertheless, the lack of reproducibility in the presence of chaos may actually
offer an advantage in tackling drug resistance in the new field of plasma medicine.
As a material processing tool, it is important to characterize the reaction
chemistry of plasma jets at a downstream point. Four special issue papers report
measurement of argon and helium metastable atoms, ozone, oxygen atoms and
UV irradiation using a variety of diagnostic tools including laser absorption
spectroscopy, molecular beam mass spectrometry, optical emission and UV
absorption spectrometry [32]–[35]. There is, however, a gap in these
measurements of key reactive plasma species and characterization of plasma
bullet formation [20]–[26], both in this special issue and elsewhere in the
literature. Whilst atmospheric plasma modes are known to operate in bullet and
non-bullet modes, it is unclear whether electron excitation of helium and/or argon
metastables is different in the bullet mode from the non-bullet mode. Similarly, it
remains little known whether the bullet mode facilitates a particularly efficient
production of reactive plasma species [36]. An encouraging sign of our ability to
address this and other knowledge gaps is evident from three excellent modelling
investigations, looking into the behaviours of ionization waves [37], interaction of
two counter-propagating streamers [38], and the two-dimensional structure of
streamers [39]. Considerable detail unravelled from these and similar simulation
studies is likely to not only uncover the physics of plasma bullet formation, but
also link it to the design and manipulation of downstream reaction chemistry. In
fact, very recent studies have combined experimental characterization of plasma
jets with their numerical modelling [40].
M G Kong, School of Electronic, Electrical and Systems Engineering,
Loughborough University, Leics LE11 3TU, UK
B N Ganguly, Air Force Research Laboratory, Wright-Patterson AFB, OH
45433, USA
R F Hicks, Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, University
of California at Los Angeles, USA

References
[1] Reed T B 1961 Induction-coupled plasma torch J. Appl. Phys. 32 821
[2] Boumans P W J and Deboer F J 1972 Studies of flame and plasma torch emission for
simultaneous multi-element analysis: 1. Preliminary investigations Spectrochim. Acta B 27
391
[3] Kurihara K, Sasaki K, Kawarada M and Koshino N 1988 High-rate synthesis of diamond by
DC plasma-jet chemical vapor-deposition Appl. Phys. Lett. 52 437
[4] Hsu K C, Etemadi K and Pfender E 1983 Studies of the free-burning high intensity argon arc
J. Appl. Phys. 54 1293
[5] Kogelschatz U 2003 Dielectric-barrier discharges: their history, discharge physics, and
industrial applications Plasma Chem. Plasma Process. 23 1

3
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 (2012) 030201 Editorial

[6] Kanazawa S, Kogoma M, Moriwaki T and Okazaki S 1988 Stable glow plasma at
atmospheric-pressure J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 21 838
[7] Inomata K, Ha H, Chaudhary K A and Koinuma H 1994 Open-air deposition of SiO2 film
from a cold-plasma torch of tetramethoxysilane-H2 -Ar system Appl. Phys. Lett. 64 46
[8] Ha H K, Yoshimoto M, Koinuma H, Moon B K and Ishiwara H 1996 Open air plasma chemical
vapor deposition of highly dielectric amorphous TiO2 films Appl. Phys. Lett. 68 2965
[9] Schutz A, Jeong J Y, Babayan S E, Park J, Selwyn G S and Hicks R F 1998 The
atmospheric-pressure plasma jet: a review and comparison to other plasma sources IEEE
Trans. Plasma Sci. 26 1685
[10] Rahul R, Stan O, Rahman A, Littlefield E, Hoshimiya K, Yalin A P, Sharma A, Pruden A,
Moore C A, Yu Z and Collins G J 2005 Optical and RF electrical characteristics of
atmospheric pressure open-air hollow slot microplasmas and application to bacterial
inactivation J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 38 1750
[11] Cao Z, Nie Q, Bayliss, Walsh J L, Ren C S, Wang D Z and Kong M G 2010 Spatially extended
atmospheric plasma arrays Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 19 025003
[12] Lu X P, Jiang Z H, Xiong Q, Tang Z Y, Hu X W and Pan Y 2008 An 11 cm long atmospheric
pressure cold plasma plume for applications of plasma medicine Appl. Phys. Lett. 92 081502
[13] Liu J H, Liu X Y, Hu K, Liu D W, Lu X P, Iza F and Kong MG 2010 Plasma plume propagation
characteristics of pulsed radio frequency plasma jet Appl. Phys. Lett. 98 151502
[14] Walsh J L, Shi J J and Kong M G 2007 Contrasting characteristics of pulsed and sinusoidal
cold atmospheric plasma jets Appl. Phys. Lett. 88 171501
[15] Cao Z, Nie Q Y and Kong M G 2010 A cold atmospheric pressure plasma jet controlled with
spatially separated dual-frequency excitations J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 42 222003
[16] Teschke M, Kedziersk J, Finantu-Dinu E G, Korzec D and Engemann J 2005 High-speed
photographs of a dielectric barrier atmospheric pressure plasma jet IEEE Trans. Plasma Sci.
33 2
[17] Sands B L, Ganguly B N and Tachibana K 2008 Streamer-like atmospheric pressure plasma jet
Appl. Phys. Lett. 92 151503
[18] Sakai O and Tachibana K 2012 Plasmas as metamaterials: a review Plasma Sources Sci.
Technol. 21 013001
[19] Kong M G, Kroesen G, Morfill G, Nosenko T, Shimizu T, van Dijk J and Zimmermann J L
2009 New J. Phys. 11 115012
[20] Urabe K, Sands B L, Ganguly B N and Sakai O 2012 Temporally and spectrally resolved
observation of a crossed-flow DBD plasma jet using pure helium and argon/acetone mixed
gases Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034004
[21] Shashurin A, Shneider M N and Keidar M 2012 Measurements of streamer head potential and
conductivity of streamer column in cold nonequilibrium atmospheric plasmas Plasma
Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034006
[22] Sands B L, Huang S K, Speltz J W, Niekamp M A, Schmidt J B, and Ganguly B N 2012
Dynamic electric potential redistribution and its influence on the development of a dielectric
barrier plasma jet Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034009
[23] Gerling T, Nastuta A V, Bussiahn R, Kindel E and Weltmann K D 2012 Back and forth
directed plasma bullets in a helium atmospheric pressure needle-to-plane discharge with
oxygen admixtures Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034012
[24] Xian Y, Lu X, Liu J, Wu S, Liu D and Pan Y 2012 Multiple plasma bullet behavior of an
atmospheric-pressure plasma plume driven by a pulsed dc voltage Plasma Sources Sci.
Technol. 21 034013
[25] Karakas E, Akman M A and Laroussi M 2012 The evolution of atmospheric-pressure
low-temperature plasma jets: jet current measurements Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21
034016
[26] Oh J S, Walsh J L and Bradley J W 2012 Plasma bullet current measurements in a free-stream
helium capillary jet Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034020
[27] Douat C, Bauville G, Fleury M, Laroussi M and Puech V 2012 Dynamics of colliding
microplasma jets Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034010
[28] Walsh J L, Olszewski P and Bradley J W 2012 The manipulation of atmospheric pressure
dielectric barrier plasma jets Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034007
[29] Robert E, Sarron V, Riès D, Dozias S, Vandamme M and Pouvesle J-M 2012Characterization
of pulsed atmospheric-pressure plasma streams (PAPS) generated by a plasma gun Plasma
Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034017
[30] X Lu, M Laroussi and Puech V 2012 On atmospheric-pressure non-equilibrium plasma jets
and plasma bullets Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034005
[31] Walsh J L, Iza F, Janson N B and Kong M G 2012 Chaos in atmospheric-pressure plasma jets
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034008
[32] Niermann B, Reuter R, Kuschel T, Benedikt J, Böke M and Winter J 2012 Argon metastable
dynamics in a filamentary jet micro-discharge at atmospheric pressure Plasma Sources Sci.
Technol. 21 034002

4
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 (2012) 030201 Editorial

[33] Reuter S, Winter J, Iseni S, Peters S, Schmidt-Bleker A, Dünnbier M, Schäfer J, Foest R and
Weltmann K-D 2012 Detection of ozone in a MHz argon plasma bullet jet Plasma Sources
Sci. Technol. 21 034015
[34] Zhu W D and Lopez J L 2012 A dc non-thermal atmospheric-pressure plasma microjet Plasma
Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034018
[35] Ellerweg D, von Keudell A and Benedikt J 2012 Unexpected O and O3 production in the
effluent of He/O2 microplasma jets emanating into ambient air Plasma Sources Sci.
Technol. 21 034019
[36] Liu J J and Kong M G 2011 Sub-60◦ C atmospheric helium-water plasma jets: modes, electron
heating and downstream reaction chemistry J. Phys. D: Appl. Appl. 44 345203
[37] Xiong Z and Kushner M J 2012 Atmospheric pressure ionization waves propagating through a
flexible high aspect ratio capillary channel and impinging upon a target Plasma Sources Sci.
Technol. 21 034001
[38] Naidis G V 2012 Simulation of interaction between two counter-propagating streamers
Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034003
[39] Breden D and Miki K, and Raja L L 2012 Self-consistent two-dimensional modeling of cold
atmospheric-pressure plasma jets/bullets Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 21 034011
[40] Takashima K, Adamovich I V, Xiong Z, Kushner M J, Starikovskaia S, Czarnetzki U and
Luggenhölscher D 2011 Experimental and modeling analysis of fast ionization wave
discharge propagation in a rectangular geometry Phys. Plasmas 18 083505

View publication stats