Jianjun Shi, Fangchun Zhong, Jing Zhang, Ding-Quan Liu, M. G. Kong

A hypersonic plasma bullet train traveling in an atmospheric dielectric-barrier discharge jet

Physics of Plasmas 15 (2008) 000

An experimental observation of fast-moving plasma bullets produced in an atmospheric dielectric-barrier discharge jet is reported in this paper. Nanosecond imaging suggests that the atmospheric discharge jet consists of a plasma bullet train traveling at a hypersonic speed from 7.0 km/s to 43.1 km/s. Yet on a millisecond scale, the bullet train appears as a plasma jet of several centimeters long. The plasma bullets are produced through several possible mechanisms, the most likely of which is related to the ionization wave. Time and space resolved optical emission spectroscopy show that reactive plasma species can be delivered to different spatial sites with varying quantities.

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