Investigation on the Microwave Excited Plasma Filament at Atmospheric Pressure

A high-efficiency microwave atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) has been developed in previous work. Long and stable plasma filament is excited directly in the open air with 2.45-GHz microwave power and double-channel argon flow by a double-coaxial structure. Unlike those plasma jets that strongly rely on a high flow rate to shape the plasma jet, this method produces a stable filamentous plasma jet at a low flow rate whose length and diameter are in a linear relationship with absorbed microwave power. This study aims to investigate the fundamental parameters of this special plasma filament under different power levels and gas flow rates by optical emission spectroscopy (OES), including the electron temperature and the spectrum. The electron temperature is determined to be 0.71–0.81 eV. It decreases slightly as the power increases, which is different from other high-voltage or radio frequency excited plasma jets under high power. The electron temperature does not change significantly with the change of microwave power and argon flow rate, more manifested as a change in the length, which indicates that this special plasma filament is related to the complex interaction of the microwave field and plasma. This study provides basic parameters for further investigation of this kind of plasma jet for theoretical and numerical simulation.