Atmospheric pressure plasma jet impinging on fiber arrays: Penetration pattern determined by fiber spacing

Abstract

Atmospheric pressure cold plasmas have great potential for surface functionalization, and the interaction between the plasmas and fibers is essential to understand the underlying physics. In this Letter, the penetration pattern and mechanism of an atmospheric pressure plasma jet (APPJ) interacting with different spacing fiber scaffolds were studied by both experiment and modeling. The intensified charge coupled device images showed that APPJ induced a radial surface streamer on the windward side of the scaffold and another axial forward streamer on the opposite side. Propagation distance of both the radial and axial streamers diminished as the spacing decreased. Similar trends were predicted by a 2D fluid model. The simulation results indicated that the high electrical field carried by the streamer head in APPJ was allowed to pass through the gap for large spacing scaffold, while it was blocked by high intensity charges at small spacing. Instead, one axial streamer was generated in the latter case. The physical insight on the penetration mechanism of plasma jet interacting with fiber array in this Letter may contribute to improve treatment uniformity of plasma technology.