The role of vibrational temperature variations in a pulsed dielectric barrier discharge plasma device

The use of dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasmas has become a practical way to carry out surface treatment and one seeks to do it in a more efficient way, which requires to have control of the plasma parameters like rotational and vibrational temperatures (T_rot and T_vib). Since the T_vib of an atmospheric pressure plasma jet is an important parameter related to improvement of surface treatments, in this work it was analyzed two methods to increase the values of T_vib in the DBD plasma. One of the methods is to reduce the exit size of the DBD reactor, and the other is to change the gas flow rate. Explanations for the reasons that lead to the increment of the vibrational temperature are proposed in both cases.