Numerical Simulation of Assisted Electrode Discharges for Electromagnetic Wave Interactions

For the past few years, research on electromagnetic wave propagation in plasma has attracted more attention, but the requirements of plasma discharge conditions limit the applications of plasma interaction with electromagnetic waves. On the basis of this, an assisted discharge electrode is designed by numerical simulation, and the discharge voltage, air pressure and distribution of the plasma are calculated aimed at stable discharge. Specific parameters of the device discharge are defined in advance and the discharge process was analyzed in a two-dimensional model using COMSOL Multiphysics. The simulation results show that adding an assisted electrode could reduce the device’s breakdown voltage, and there are two turning points in the volt-ampere characteristic curve after the addition of the assisted electrode, indicating that the transition zone of the two electrodes is not synchronized. When the size of the assisted electrode is reduced, the two inflection points are turned into one. Then, the two electrodes are simultaneously broken down at the same voltage point of the device’s volt-ampere characteristic curve, and the assisted electrode decreases the difficulty of the discharge of the device, and plays a role in assisting the ground electrode in discharge. And then, the absorption effect of electromagnetic waves was evaluated by numerical simulation methods in CST, and the electromagnetic wave attenuation in plasma was analyzed. Finally, this experiment is a preliminary study of the problem of the interaction of assisted electrode discharges in the propagation of electromagnetic waves, and we hope that the design will offer several solutions to the problem of raising the thickness of the plasma.