Resonant microwaves probing the spatial afterglow of an RF plasma jet

The electron density and effective electron collision frequency in the spatial afterglow of a pulsed radio frequency driven atmospheric-pressure plasma jet are obtained by using microwave cavity resonance spectroscopy in a temporal manner with an ∼1 μs resolution. During the “plasma on” phase, values of 1.7 ± 0.3 × 10 18 m−3 for the electron density and 0.12 ± 0.01 THz for the electron collision frequency were found. These values and standard deviations represent the collective measurement set with repetition rates ranging from 125 to 8000 Hz. The spread in the plasma parameters during this phase within one repetition frequency is smaller than 3%. It is observed that remnant species, e.g., metastables, of previous discharges influence the decay of the plasma. The work reported is enabled by recent developments in the applied diagnostic with respect to the resolution in the plasmas' permittivity. Moreover, a multiplying probe is used for the electrical characterization of the plasma and the presence of the cavity did not influence the plasma impedance. This strongly suggests that the cavity did not affect the discharge.