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Neutral gas flow and ring-shaped emission profile in non-thermal RF-excited plasma needle discharge at atmospheric pressure

We demonstrate that a balance between convective helium flow and ambient air diffusion creates a unique ring-shaped light emission profile by means of finite element analysis of the atmospheric pressure RF-excited plasma needle. The plasma needle has a point-to-plane geometry with a radius of 30 µm at the tip and an inter-electrode gap of 1 mm. We employ a coupled model between time-dependent plasma dynamics based on a fluid model and steady state neutral gas flow in two-dimensional cylindrical coordinates. When the mean inlet gas velocity is 1.5 m s−1 and the discharge is in high-power glow mode at 200 mW, the concentration of air drastically increases near a treated surface being away from the needle tip. As a result, Penning ionization by helium metastables and air (nitrogen) peaks at an off-axis position, corresponding to the ring-shaped emission profile in cylindrical coordinates. The off-axis ionization peak leads to an off-axis flux peak of nitrogen ions onto the treated surface. The ‘ion wind’ and gas heating have only minor effects on the discharge structure under the conditions considered here.