Changes in Properties of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma Jets for Different Gases and for Insulating and Conducting Transfer Plates

Dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma jets have been studied extensively in recent years because of its wide range of applications. DBD plasmas can be produced using many different gases and can be applied to a broad variety of surfaces and substrates. This work provides comparisons of DBD plasmas generated using argon (Ar), helium (He), and nitrogen (N₂), as well as their mixtures with water vapor in order to know how some plasma properties are affected by the use of different gases. All plasmas were studied in two different conditions: using a transfer plate made of a conductive material and using a transfer plate made of an insulating one. It was observed that the process of Penning ionization of nitrogen molecules by direct collisions with metastable atoms and molecules is evident and significant only in plasmas that use He as the working gas, which means that He atoms in metastable states have greater ability to transfer energy to molecules of nitrogen in the plasma. The collisions of metastable He with N₂ molecules determine the vibrational temperature (T _vib) values in He plasmas, while in Ar and N₂ plasmas, the T _vib values are determined mainly by collisions of electrons with N₂ molecules. It was noticed that the use of an insulating or a conducting transfer plate as the sample holder affects the results of adhesion between poly(dimethylsiloxane) samples, and it is mainly due to the differences in the plasma power, with a higher plasma power leading to better adhesion.