I read about non-thermal plasma, but I still have some questions:
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The ions and neutral particles are not in thermal equilibrium with the electron, does that mean that the overall temperature is low like in neon signs?
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Does the non-thermal plasma have relatively low ionization percentages, like 2 or 3%? Or higher ionizations can be achieved?
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Is the super cold plasma the only way to get a non-thermal plasma?
Best Answer
Non-thermal is a broad catch-all for energy distributions that are not Maxwellian. The reason it is interesting is because if it's not Maxwellian, it's not in thermodynamic equilibrium and some work can be extracted from it while it relaxes or the energy differences between electrons and ions produced an interesting or desirable phenomena.
So to answer your questions:
Hope this was helpful.