Enhancements of electric field and afterglow of non-equilibrium plasma by Pb(ZrxTi1-x)O3 ferroelectric electrode

Yijie Xu; Ning Liu; Ying Lin; Xingqian Mao; Hongtao Zhong; Ziqiao Chang; Mikhail N Shneider; Yiguang Ju

doi:10.1038/s41467-024-47230-7

Enhancements of electric field and afterglow of non-equilibrium plasma by Pb(Zr_xTi_1-x)O₃ ferroelectric electrode

Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 10;15(1):3092. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47230-7.

Authors

Yijie Xu¹, Ning Liu², Ying Lin¹, Xingqian Mao¹, Hongtao Zhong^{1

3}, Ziqiao Chang¹, Mikhail N Shneider¹, Yiguang Ju^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, USA.
² Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, 08540, USA. nl7@princeton.edu.
³ Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
⁴ Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton, NJ, 08540, USA.

Abstract

Manipulating surface charge, electric field, and plasma afterglow in a non-equilibrium plasma is critical to control plasma-surface interaction for plasma catalysis and manufacturing. Here, we show enhancements of surface charge, electric field during breakdown, and afterglow by ferroelectric barrier discharge. The results show that the ferroelectrics manifest spontaneous electric polarization to increase the surface charge by two orders of magnitude compared to discharge with an alumina barrier. Time-resolved in-situ electric field measurements reveal that the fast polarization of ferroelectrics enhances the electric field during the breakdown in streamer discharge and doubles the electric field compared to the dielectric barrier discharge. Moreover, due to the existence of surface charge, the ferroelectric electrode extends the afterglow time and makes discharge sustained longer when alternating the external electric field polarity. The present results show that ferroelectric barrier discharge offers a promising technique to tune plasma properties for efficient plasma catalysis and electrified manufacturing.

Abstract

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