Atmospheric and higher pressure RF and microwave plasma sources have numerous applications including material processing and spectroscopy. More recently, advantages in using such discharges for combustion ignition are being investigated. A particularly simple and compact microwave discharge generating device is the quarter wave coaxial cavity resonator (QWCCR). This paper presents a new, compacted design of such a device. A simple approximate analysis of the quality factor, Q, which is a measure of the resonant electromagnetic potential step-up capability is given, and compared to experimentally measured quality factors showing reasonable agreement. Analytic results indicate that the foreshortened folded cavity quality factors are comparable to tapered coaxial cavity designs.
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