Simulation of Low Temperature Plasmas for an Ultra Violet Light Source using Coplanar Micro Dielectric Barrier Discharges

The discharge characteristics of pulse-driven coplanar micro barrier discharges for an ultraviolet (UV) light source using Ne-Xe mixture have been investigated using a two-dimensional fluid simulation at near-atmospheric pressure. The densities of electrons, the radiative excited states, the metastable excited states, and the power loss are investigated with the variations of gas pressure and the gap distance. With a fixed gap distance, the number of the radiative states $Xe^*(^3P_1)$ increases with the increasing driving voltage, but this number shows weak dependency on the gas when that pressure is over 400 Torr. However, the number of the radiative states increases with the increase of the gap distance at a fixed voltage, while the power loss decreases. Therefore, a long gap discharge has higher efficiency for UV generation than does a short gap discharge. A slight change in the electrode tilt angle enhances the number of radiative species 2 or 3 times with the same operation conditions. Therefore, the intensity and efficiency of the UV light source can be controlled independently by changing the gap distance and the electrode structure.