Evolution of Argon Discharges in Bottle-Shaped Tube Excited by Surface Plasmon Polaritons With a Low Power Operation

In this paper, an improved microwave plasma jet based on the principles of surface plasmon polaritons is exhibited. Instead of the traditional capillary discharge, a bottle-shaped discharge tube is designed. An interesting discharge phenomenon that the discharge state changes from glow discharge to the filamentary streamers along the inner wall of the tube is found when the pressure increases. This may have a promising application prospect for the large-area surface processing.