Global model of He/O-2 and Ar/O-2 atmospheric pressure glow discharges

Abstract

Atmospheric pressure glow discharges (APGDs) have widespread applications, including sterilization, cancer cell treatment, deposition, and surface modification due to their rather simple configurations, thanks to no need for vacuum system and their great capability to generate reactive species such as radical oxygen species. Helium and argon are widely used as feeding gases, achieving stable operations for wide ranges of parameters in atmospheric pressure, and oxygen is added into these gases to generate more reactive oxygen species (ROS), which play a significant role in sterilization. As the measurements of species densities and electron temperature in APGDs are difficult, we have developed the zero-dimensional global model of He/O-2 and Ar/O-2 APGDs to calculate the densities of several kinds of species and electron temperature. It was shown that even though small fraction of oxygen less than 1% was added to helium. or argon, electrons dissipated most of their energy through collisions with oxygen molecules rather than helium or argon atoms. The densities of electron, atomic oxygen, and ozone of Ar/O-2 were higher than those of He/O-2; however, the electron temperature of He/O-2 was higher than that of Ar/O-2- When the pulsed power is applied, the time-averaged electron temperature for the shorter pulse period and the larger duty ratio increased, and the electron density decreased as the duty ratio increased.