2014/12/16 by Ebrahim Forati, Shiva Piltan, Dan Sievenpiper
Chemistry · Engineering · Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Argon #Atomic physics #Chemistry #Dipole #Electric field #Electrohydrodynamics and Fluid Dynamics #Emission spectrum #Metastability #Microplasma #Physics #Plasma #Plasma Applications and Diagnostics #Plasma Diagnostics and Applications #Relaxation (psychology) #Spectral line #Spectroscopy #Stark effect #Voltage #physics.plasm-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/1.4907414
published as Appl. Phys. Lett. 106 , 054101 (2015)
arxiv created 2014/12/16 · openalex publication_date 2015/02/02 · arxiv updated 2015/02/12 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Using a relaxation oscillator circuit, breakdown (VBD) and quench (VQ) voltages of a DC discharge microplasma between two needle probes are measured. High resolution modified Paschen curves are obtained for argon microplasmas including a quench voltage curve representing the voltage at which the plasma turns off. It is shown that for a point to point microgap (e.g., the microgap between two needle probes) which describes many realistic microdevices, neither Paschen's law applies nor field emission is noticeable. Although normally VBD > VQ, it is observed that depending on environmental parameters of argon, such as pressure and the driving circuitry, plasma can exist in a different state with equal VBD and VQ. Using emission line spectroscopy, it is shown that VBD and VQ are equal if the atomic excitation by the electric field dipole moment dominantly leads to one of the argon's metastable states (4P5 in our study).