Discharge features of radio-frequency, atmospheric-pressure cold plasmas under an intensified local electric field

In this paper, stable atmospheric-pressure argon, nitrogen or air glow discharges driven by a radio-frequency power supply with water-cooled, bare copper electrodes are obtained by employing a newly-designed plasma generator. Due to the existence of the intensified local electric field by using an insulated tungsten wire between the two bare copper electrodes, which is also verified by the modelling results, the experimental measurements show that stable glow discharges of argon, nitrogen or air can be obtained following a local breakdown process in the vicinity of the tungsten wire under lower applied voltages between the electrodes.