Numerical study on distribution of electric fields in cells induced by atmospheric helium plasmas

Abstract

In recent years, plasma medicine has attracted more and more attentions with the fast development of atmospheric plasmas technology. The experimental measurements have definitely shown some positive effects on the biological tissue and materials, however, the mechanisms of interactions between atmospheric plasma and cells are still unknown. In this paper, we coupled the fluid model and multi-layer dielectric of spherical cell to investigate the temporal-spatial distribution of electric fields in the cells induced by the atmospheric plasmas generated by dielectric barrier discharges. From the simulation data, the voltage on the cell almost totally drops on plasma membrane and the voltage on the plasma membrane is much larger than that of normal cells. On the other hand, both the transmembrane potentials of inner and outer membrane rise very fast during the process of ignition, then the former drops quickly after the breakdown, but the later sustains at a relatively large value until the next breakdown event. The influences on the voltage distribution in cell of applied voltage and excitation frequency are also discussed based on the simulation data. At present, the numerical investigations on the interaction of plasma and cells still need to be greatly developed, and the given simulation in this work will show some insights to the further theoretical study.