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Streamer discharges are a primary mode of electric breakdown in thunderstorms and high voltage technology; they are generally believed to grow along electric field lines. However, we here give experimental and numerical evidence that streamers can propagate nearly perpendicularly to the background electric field. These streamers are guided by pre-ionization that is orders of magnitude lower than the ionization density in a streamer channel, hardly affecting the background field. Positive streamers could be guided in nitrogen with 0.5% of oxygen or less, but not in air. This observation also tests the role of photo-ionization in gas mixtures with varying nitrogen–oxygen ratio.

We present a novel microplasma flow reactor using a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) driven by repetitive nanosecond high-voltage pulses. Our DBD-based geometry can generate a non-thermal plasma discharge at atmospheric pressure and below in a regular pattern of micro-channels. This reactor can work continuously up to about 100 min in air, depending on the pulse repetition rate and operating pressure. We here present the geometry and main characteristics of the reactor. Pulse energies of 1.46 and 1.3 μJ per channel at atmospheric pressure and 50 mbar, respectively, have been determined by time-resolved measurements of current and voltage. Time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy measurements have been performed to calculate the relative species concentrations and temperatures (vibrational and rotational) of the discharge. The effects of the operating pressure and flow velocity on the discharge intensity have been investigated. In addition, the effective reduced electric field strength has been obtained from the intensity ratio of vibronic emission bands of molecular nitrogen at different operating pressures and different locations. The derived increases gradually from about 550 to 4600 Td when decreasing the pressure from 1 bar to 100 mbar. Below 100 mbar, further pressure reduction results in a significant increase in up to about 10000 Td at 50 mbar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gas flows can be induced by gas discharges like DC coronas because neutral molecules gain momentum by ion-neutral collisions. This can be used for active cooling and has advantages over mechanical fans. We investigate ionic wind by a DC corona discharge under different conditions with an emphasis on the effects of voltage polarity and the transition between different discharge regimes. We also consider the gas temperature of a DC corona which is important when it is to be used for cooling purposes. Although DC coronas are usually characterized as low temperature plasmas, gas heating can have a significant impact on flow generation, especially at higher operating voltages. In this paper, a 5–20 kV DC voltage of positive and negative polarity is applied to a needle–cylinder electrode. The ionic wind velocity at the exit of the cylinder electrode is measured by hot wire anemometry and the emission spectrum is used to study the gas temperature. It is found that the flow velocity induced by positive coronas is higher than that by negative coronas for voltages above 10–15 kV, which is also demonstrated by a phenomenological EHD force model. Furthermore, a heated column is observed by Schlieren technique for both voltage polarities. An improved self-consistent ionic wind model considering heat transfer is built to study the temperature distribution. The simulation results indicate that the gas flow velocity is lower on the symmetry axis when the temperature gradient is taken into account, something which is usually ignored in ionic wind simulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this work is to study the properties of Ar–O2 microwave driven surfatron plasmas as a function of the Ar/O2 ratio in the gas mixture. The key parameters are the plasma electron density and electron temperature, which are estimated with Thomson scattering (TS) for O2 contents up to 50% of the total gas flow. A sharp drop in the electron density from to approximately is estimated as the O2 content in the gas mixture is increased up to 15%. For percentages of O2 lower than 10%, the electron temperature is estimated to be about 2–3 times higher than in the case of a pure argon discharge in the same conditions ( eV) and gradually decreases as the O2 percentage is raised to 50%. However, for O2 percentages above 30%, the scattering spectra become Raman dominated, resulting in large uncertainties in the estimated electron densities and temperatures. The influence of photo-detached electrons from negative ions caused by the typical TS laser fluences is also likely to contribute to the uncertainty in the measured electron densities for high O2 percentages. Moreover, the detection limit of the system is reached for percentages of O2 higher than 25%. Additionally, both the electron density and temperature of microwave discharges with large Ar/O2 ratios are more sensitive to gas pressure variations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ionic wind is produced by a corona discharge when gaseous ions are accelerated in the electric field and transfer their momentum to neutral molecules by collisions. This technique is promising because a gas flow can be generated without the need for moving parts and can be easily miniaturized. The basic theory of ionic wind sounds simple but the details are far from clear. In our experiment, a negative DC voltage is applied to a needle-cylinder electrode geometry. Hot wire anemometry is used to measure the flow velocity at the downstream exit of the cylinder. The flow velocity fluctuates but the average velocity increases with the voltage. The current consists of a regular train of pulses with short rise time, the well-known Trichel pulses. To reveal the ionic wind mechanism in the Trichel pulse stage, a three-species corona model coupled with gas dynamics is built. The drift-diffusion equations of the plasma together with the Navier–Stokes equations of the flow are solved in COMSOL Multiphysics. The electric field, net number density of charged species, electrohydrodynamic (EHD) body force and flow velocity are calculated in detail by a self-consistent model. Multiple time scales are employed: hundreds of microseconds for the plasma characteristics and longer time scales (∼1 s) for the flow behavior. We found that the flow velocity as well as the EHD body force have opposite directions in the ionization region close to the tip and the ion drift region further away from the tip. The calculated mean current, Trichel pulse frequency and flow velocity are very close to our experimental results. Furthermore, in our simulations we were able to reproduce the mushroom-like minijets observed in experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use (sub)nanosecond high-voltage pulses to generate streamers in atmospheric-pressure air in a wire-cylinder reactor. We study the effect of reactor length, pulse duration, pulse amplitude, pulse polarity, and pulse rise time on the streamer development, specifically on the streamer distribution in the reactor to relate it to plasma-processing results. We use ICCD imaging with a fully automated setup that can image the streamers in the entire corona-plasma reactor. From the images, we calculate streamer lengths and velocities. We also develop a circuit simulation model of the reactor to support the analysis of the streamer development. The results show how the propagation of the high-voltage pulse through the reactor determines the streamer development. As the pulse travels through the reactor, it generates streamers and attenuates and disperses. At the end of the reactor, it reflects and adds to itself. The local voltage on the wire together with the voltage rise time determine the streamer velocities, and the pulse duration the consequent maximal streamer length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A plasma causes a force on particles on a surface. We quantitatively measure this force by means of two different setups, which use different methods to balance the forces on these particles: one using vibrations, the other a centrifuge. From this, we deduce both the adhesion that sticks the particles to the surface, and how the application of a plasma affects the adhesion of the particles. We show that the plasma alters the force balance on 100 diameter particles with a force in the order of micronewtons. We can conclude, from both additional experiments and comparison to theory, that the main plasma effect is not an electrostatic force on a charged particle; its magnitude is orders of magnitude larger than what would be expected from electrostatic theory. The plasma likely has an effect on the particle adhesion, possibly caused by evaporation of water. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new method of processing time-integrated coherent Thomson scattering spectra is presented, which provides not only the electron density and temperature but also information about the transient behaviour of the plasma. Therefore, it is an alternative to single-shot Thomson scattering measurements as long as the scattering is coherent. The method is applied to a microwave plasma torch operating in argon or a mixture of argon with hydrogen at atmospheric pressure. Electron densities up to m−3 (ionization degree above 10−3) were observed, which is more than two times higher than presented in earlier works on comparable discharges. Additionally, a parametric study with respect to the argon/hydrogen ratio and the input power was carried out and the results are discussed together with earlier Stark broadening measurements on the same plasma. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study pulsed positive discharges in air in a cylindrically symmetric setup with an electrode needle close (about 1 mm) above the top of a dielectric cylindrical rod of 4 mm in diameter mounted at its bottom on a grounded plate electrode. We present ICCD (intensified charge-coupled device) pictures and evaluations of experiments as well as simulations with a fluid discharge model; the simulations use cylindrical symmetry. In the experiments, there is an initial inception cloud phase, where the cylindrical symmetry is maintained, and later a streamer phase, where it is broken spontaneously. At 75–150 mbar, discharges with cylindrical symmetry are not attracted to the dielectric rod, but move away from it. The dielectric rod plays the sole role of an obstacle that shades (in the context of photoionization) a cone-shaped part of the inception cloud; the cone size is determined by the geometry of the setup. The material properties of the dielectric rod, such as its dielectric permittivity and the efficiency of the photon induced secondary electron emission do not have a noticeable effect. This is due to the abundance of photoionization in air, which supplies a positive discharge with free electrons and allows it to propagate along the electric field lines. Using some simple field calculations, we show that field enhancement due to dielectric polarization does not play a significant role in our geometry as long as the discharge maintains its cylindrical symmetry. The field component towards the rod is insufficiently enhanced to cause the discharge to move towards the rod. Any additional electrons produced by the dielectric surface do not influence this discharge morphology. This interpretation is supported by both experiments and simulations. At higher pressures (400–600 mbar) or for larger gaps between the needle and the dielectric rod, the inception cloud reaches its maximal radius within the gap between needle and rod and destabilizes there. In those cases, streamer channels are more likely to turn into a surface streamer. All our experiments and simulations were performed at moderate pressures (75–600 mbar), but we expect that the results will be the same for other pressures assuming that all the lengths scales (including the rod) in the setup are rescaled according to the Townsend scaling of the discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It was recently suggested that the electron affinity may pose an additional upper limit on the charge of a single particle in a plasma, in addition to the electron field emission limit. Here we will, however, show that these two limits both rely on the same physical process and that the limit is only relevant for small particles, because it relies on electron tunneling. Plasma-produced particles of only several nanometres () in size are actively studied, for example in the application of quantum dots and the implications of the proposed charge limit are certainly significant there. However, care must be taken to extend the results to larger particles, which are also actively studied in the field of dusty plasma physics, where typically the limit can be neglected, as we will also show. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Because positive streamers propagate opposite to the electron drift velocity, their growth not only depends on the local electric field, but also on the electron density ahead of them. We have recently demonstrated the importance of this electron density, by showing that positive streamers could be guided by weak preionization from a laser. Here, we study streamer guiding in nitrogen–oxygen mixtures in more detail, to better understand the propagation of positive streamers. First, the conditions required for guiding are investigated, both experimentally and with three-dimensional numerical simulations. Particular focus is on the role of oxygen and photoionization, which tend to inhibit guiding. Then the position of the guided streamers is investigated, and successfully related to the electron drift. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the laser heating of nanoparticles (diameters μm) confined in a reactive plasma by short (150 ps) and intense ( mJ) UV (355 nm) laser pulses (laser-induced incandescence, LII). Important parameters such as the particle temperature and radius follow from analysis of the emission spectrum of the heated nanoparticles. The nanoparticles are not ideal black bodies, which is taken into account by calculating their emissivity using a light-scattering theory relevant to our conditions (Mie theory). Three sets of refractive index data from the literature serve as model input. The obtained radii range between 100 and 165 nm, depending on the choice of refractive index data set. By fitting the temperature decay of the particles to a heat exchange model, the product of their mass density and specific heat is determined as J K−1 cm−3, which is considerably smaller than the value for bulk graphite at the temperature our particles attain (3000 K): 4.8 J K−1 cm−3. The particle sizes obtained in situ with LII are compared with ex situ scanning electron microscopy analysis of collected particles. Quantitative assessment of the LII measurements is hampered by transport of particles in the plasma volume and the fact that LII probes locally, whereas the samples with collected particles have a more global character. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The charge on two sets of 100 μm polystyrene particles has been measured using their acceleration in an externally applied electric field. This allows for the measurement of the individual charge on multiple particles at the same time. It is found that particles will charge each other both positively and negatively due to the triboelectric effect. This leads to a broad particle-charge distribution with positive, negative and neutral particles. The particle charge can be largely removed by applying a plasma over the particle containing surface. After plasma charge removal, the particles are triboelectrically recharged when they come into contact with other materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe a peculiar branching phenomenon in positive repetitive streamer discharges in high purity nitrogen. We name it knotwilg branching after the Dutch word for a pollard willow tree. In a knotwilg branching a thick streamer suddenly splits into many thin streamers. Under some conditions this happens for all streamers in a discharge at about the same distance from the high-voltage electrode tip. At this distance, the thick streamers suddenly bend sharply and appear to propagate over a virtual surface surrounding the high-voltage electrode, rather than following the background electric field lines. From these bent thick streamers many, much thinner, streamers emerge that roughly follow the background electric field lines, creating the characteristic knotwilg branching. We have only found this particular morphology in high purity nitrogen at pressures in the range 50 to 200 mbar and for pulse repetition rates above 1 Hz; the experiments were performed for an electrode distance of 16 cm and for fast voltage pulses of 20 or 30 kV. These observations clearly disagree with common knowledge on streamer propagation. We have analyzed the data of several tens of thousands of discharges to clarify the phenomena. We also present some thoughts on how the ionization of the previous discharges could concentrate into some pre-ionization region near the needle electrode and create the knotwilg morphology, but we present no final explanation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We evaluate the nanosecond temporal evolution of tens of thousands of positive discharges in a 16 cm point-plane gap in high purity nitrogen 6.0 and in N2–O2 gas mixtures with oxygen contents of 100 ppm, 0.2%, 2% and 20%, for pressures between 66.7 and 200 mbar. The voltage pulses have amplitudes of 20 to 40 kV with rise times of 20 or 60 ns and repetition frequencies of 0.1 to 10 Hz. The discharges first rapidly form a growing cloud around the tip, then they expand much more slowly like a shell and finally after a stagnation stage they can break up into rapid streamers. The radius of cloud and shell in artificial air is about 10% below the theoretically predicted value and scales with pressure p as theoretically expected, while the observed scaling of time scales with p raises questions. We find characteristic dependences on the oxygen content. No cloud and shell stage can be seen in nitrogen 6.0, and streamers emerge immediately. The radius of cloud and shell increases with oxygen concentration. On the other hand, the stagnation time after the shell phase is maximal for the intermediate oxygen concentration of 0.1% and the number of streamers formed is minimal; here the cloud and shell phase seem to be particularly stable against destabilization into streamers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Streamers are rapidly extending ionized finger-like structures that dominate the initial breakdown of large gas volumes in the presence of a sufficiently strong electric field. Their macroscopic parameters are described by simple scaling relations, where the densities of electrons and of excited molecules in the active streamer front scale as the square of the density of the neutral gas. In this work we estimate the absolute density of nitrogen molecules, excited to the C3Πu state that emit photons in the 2P–N2 band, by radiometrically calibrated short exposure intensified imaging. We test several pressures (100, 200 and 400 mbar) in artificial air at room temperature. Our results provide a first confirmation for the scaling of the density of excited species with the gas density. The method proposed here is particularly suitable to characterize the excitation densities in sprite streamers in the atmosphere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Low-pressure acetylene plasmas are able to spontaneously form dust particles. This will result in a dense cloud of solid particles that is levitated in the plasma. The formed particles can grow up to micrometers. We observed a spontaneous interruption in the expansion of the so-called dust void. A dust void is a macroscopic region in the plasma that is free of nanoparticles. The phenomenon is periodical and reproducible. We refer to the expansion interruption as ‘hiccup’. The expanding void is an environment in which a new cycle of dust particle formation can start. At a certain moment in time, this cycle reaches the (sudden) coagulation phase and as a result the void will temporarily shrink. To substantiate this reasoning, the electron density is determined non-intrusively using microwave cavity resonance spectroscopy. Moreover, video imaging of laser light scattering of the dust particles provides their spatial distribution. The emission intensity of a single argon transition is measured similarly. Our results support the aforementioned hypothesis for what happens during the void hiccup. The void dynamics preceding the hiccup are modeled using a simple analytical model for the two dominant forces (ion drag and electric) working on a nanoparticle in a plasma. The model results qualitatively reproduce the measurements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Positive streamers need a source of free electrons ahead of them to propagate. A streamer can supply these electrons by itself through photo-ionization, or the electrons can be present due to external background ionization. Here we investigate the effects of background ionization on streamer propagation and morphology by changing the gas composition and the repetition rate of the voltage pulses, and by adding a small amount of radioactive 85Kr.We find that the general morphology of a positive streamer discharge in high-purity nitrogen depends on background ionization: at lower background ionization levels the streamers branch more and have a more feather-like appearance. This is observed both when varying the repetition rate and when adding 85Kr, though side branches are longer with the radioactive admixture. But velocities and minimal diameters of streamers are virtually independent of the background ionization level. In air, the inception cloud breaks up into streamers at a smaller radius when the repetition rate and therefore the background ionization level is higher. When measuring the effects of the pulse repetition rate and of the radioactive admixture on the discharge morphology, we found that our estimates of background ionization levels are consistent with these observations; this gives confidence in the estimates.Streamer channels generally do not follow the paths of previous discharge channels for repetition rates of up to 10 Hz. We estimate the effect of recombination and diffusion of ions and free electrons from the previous discharge and conclude that the old trail has largely disappeared at the moment of the next voltage pulse; therefore the next streamers indeed cannot follow the old trail. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Properties of pulsed corona streamers are measured and simulated in full three spatial dimensions (3D). Stereo photography is used to measure branching angles and to investigate whether apparent streamers reconnections are real. 3D simulations of two parallel streamers show that they can repel each other electrostatically, but that they also can merge due to photoionization. The electrostatic interaction of several streamers becomes evident through theoretical investigations of a periodic array of streamers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pictures show that streamer or sprite discharge channels emerging from the same electrode sometimes seem to reconnect or merge though their heads carry electric charge of the same polarity; one might therefore suspect that reconnections are an artefact of the two-dimensional projection in the pictures. Here we use stereo photography to investigate the full three-dimensional structure of such events. We analyse reconnection, possibly an electrostatic effect in which a late thin streamer reconnects to an earlier thick streamer channel, and merging, a suggested photoionization effect in which two simultaneously propagating streamer heads merge into one new streamer. We use four different anode geometries (one tip, two tips, two asymmetric protrusions in a plate and a wire), placed 40 mm above a flat cathode plate in ambient air. A positive high voltage pulse is applied to the anode, creating a positive corona discharge. This discharge is studied with a fast ICCD camera, in many cases combined with optics to enable stereoscopic imaging. We find that reconnections as defined above occur frequently. Merging on the other hand was only observed at a pressure of 25 mbar and a tip separation of 2 mm, i.e. for a reduced tip distance of p·d = 50 µm bar. In this case the full width at half maximum of the streamer channel is more than 10 times as large as the tip separation. At higher pressures or with a wire anode, merging was not observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A diagnostic technique is presented to determine the electrode work function in ac-operated metal halide lamps. The heart of the experimental set-up is a high-speed photodiode array detector, which is able to follow real-time variations of electrode tip temperature and near-electrode plasma emissions in ac-operated experimental YAG lamps, enabling discrimination between the anode and cathode effects. Electrode tip temperature ripples have been measured for 100 Hz square wave operation and simulated with an existing electrode model. By using the electrode work function as main fit parameter for the simulations it is found that the measured cooling effect of the electrode tip in a NaTlDy-iodide lamp is caused by a gas-phase emitter effect of Dy. It is concluded that Dy coverage of the electrode tip causes an effective work function reduction of 0.3 eV at 100 Hz square wave operation, considerably less than the 1.0 eV reduction measured earlier for dc operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) to probe the dynamics of the stepping process of negatively charged plasma channels (negative leaders) in a lightning discharge. We observe that at each step of a leader, multiple pulses of vhf (30-80 MHz) radiation are emitted in short-duration bursts (<10  μs). This is evidence for streamer formation during corona flashes that occur with each leader step, which has not been observed before in natural lightning and it could help explain x-ray emission from lightning leaders, as x rays from laboratory leaders tend to be associated with corona flashes. Surprisingly, we find that the stepping length is very similar to what was observed near the ground, however with a stepping time that is considerably larger, which as yet is not understood. These results will help to improve lightning propagation models, and eventually lightning protection models.

The contribution of higher vibrational levels to the rotational spectrum of linear polyatomic molecules with a center of symmetry (CO 2 and C 2 H 2 ) is assessed. An apparent nuclear degeneracy is analytically formulated by vibrational averaging and compared to numerical averaging over vibrational levels. It enables inferring the vibrational temperature of the bending and asymmetric stretching modes from the ratio of even to odd peaks in the rotational Raman spectrum. The contribution from higher vibrational levels is already observable at room temperature as g˜ e/o =0.96/0.04 for CO 2 and g˜ e/o =1.16/2.84 for C 2 H 2 . The use of the apparent degeneracy to account for higher vibrational levels is demonstrated on spectra measured for a CO 2 microwave plasma in the temperature range of 300-3500 K, and shown to be valid up to 1500 K.

The word "drug" in accordance with the definition given by the WHO means "any substance that, when taken into the living organisms, may modify one or more of its functions". This thus covers a wider field than the word "medicine" or "medicament". There are many substances which are capable of provoking anxiety and are very frequently consumed. According to recent publications the use and abuse of alcohol, cigarettes, heroin, cocaine, marihuana, and drugs such as sedatives (neuroleptics), caffeine, minor tranquilisers and other may provoke acute and chronic anxiety and depression. When confronted with anxiety states or depressive states, it is absolutely essential not to overlook the possibility that they may have been induced by a medicament or a drug which the patient has been using.