The importance of three-body processes to reaction kinetics at atmospheric pressures--II: Occlusive effects of discharge morphology

This work reports the results of a study of the extent to which variations in the spatial uniformity of the energy deposition in an atmospheric pressure plasma can alter the appearance of the time-dependent evolution of the reactive species. It was found in the afterglows of plasmas produced in atmospheric pressure of helium containing small admixtures of N 2 that the relative importance of ion and neutral chemistries varied substantially over the physical dimensions. The situation was further complicated by modulations that seemed to be a consequence of the heating of the afterglow by residual currents oscillating in the mismatched Blumlein. Nevertheless, the kinetics could still be described by the relatively straightforward model developed in the preceding paper.