Characteristics of a surfatron-produced atmospheric-pressure plasma jet at low plasma temperatures

Summary form only given. The need of Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma is becoming increasingly important in several application fields like surface treatment for coating industry or microbicidal treatment. Due to a lot of investigation the discharge at atmospheric pressure has developed a wide range of applications over the last years, such as microbial decontamination. One of the possibly most interesting characteristics of an atmospheric pressure plasma is that it can fill the gap between low pressure and high pressure plasmas as it enables likewise high-temperature plasmas with a thermal equilibrium and low-temperature plasmas with high-energy electrons.High temperature plasmas can be deployed for the disinfection of non-organic materials compatible with these high temperatures, like titanium implants. Surface wave driven plasmas allow high electron and low plasma temperatures at low injected powers. A low plasma temperature enables to also treat materials sensitive to high temperatures or furthermore even the human skin. An optimized Surface-design developed at the Light Technology Institute of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology enables higher field strengths and by that an stable ionization of the working gas at lower induced powers. Besides the power the effective temperature of the plasma strongly depends on the gas flow rate. This research focuses on the characterization of plasmas with an effective plasma temperature below 50°C. An extension of the detailed understanding of all processes within an Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma Jet at this low temperatures is the main object of this research. In this work all relevant plasma parameters such as the plasma temperature, electron temperature, plasma density and its UV- and ViS-spectrum are studied. The consequent characteristics of the cold plasma jet is then evaluated concerning their possible fields of application.