Gas-phase Reactive Oxygen and Nitrogen Species in Air Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharges by FTIR and UV spectroscopy

Atmospheric pressure plasmas are considered promising for biomedical treatment purpose due to the production of reactive oxygen species and reactive nitrogen species during the discharge. In this study, a surface micro-discharge system which operates at 10 kHz, 0.01 -- 1 W/cm$^2$ in ambient air is used. FTIR and UV-absorbance are used to investigate the time-average gas phase composition and time-resolved ozone concentration, respectively. The results showed that the gas composition is greatly influenced by the power consumption in plasmas. At 0.3 W/cm$^2$, the gas phase is dominant by NOx species and nearly no ozone is observed while at 0.05 W/cm$^2$ the amount of NOx is less and the ozone is dominant. Also, time-resolved ozone measurement by means of UV (254 nm) absorbance shows that ozone concentration reaches higher than 1000 ppm in the first tens of seconds and quenched within 1 minutes at high power condition. However, at low power condition no obvious quench of ozone is observed and the ozone concentration attains a steady state in response to the equilibrium of ozone generation and diffusion loss