Modeling of a (sub-)atmospheric pressure ns-pulsed plasma jet*

A ns-pulsed discharge between two plane-parallel electrodes at sub-atmospheric pressure (0.1 to 1 bar) is investigated by different numerical and analytical methods. The electrode separation is typically in the range of a millimeter and as model gas nitrogen is used. A spatially one dimensional (but including three dimensions in velocity space) particle-in-cell simulation with Monte-Carlo collisions (PIC/MCC) allows monitoring the fast increase of the plasma density during a discharge pulse by dynamic adjustment of the super-particle weights. Due to the relatively high pressure, recombination is seen to be important for the discharge development to a quasi-steady state. Using insights from the PIC/MCC simulation fluid models are developed, which are less computational demanding or can even be solved analytically. This allows the investigation of different discharge conditions (pressure, applied voltage, gap size). Various discharge regions are identified analogously to classical DC glow discharges and consequences for zero dimensional chemical models are discussed.