Nanosecond Dielectric Barrier Discharge Plasma

For some period of time the use of plasma in medicine has been limited to thermal discharges for cauterization and dissection. Non-thermal plasma, on the other hand, can have many different modes of interaction with tissue. It has been recently demonstrated that direct treatment of smooth surfaces by non-thermal dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in air is highly effective in killing pathogens and DBD can create different sub-lethal and selective effects. However, a typical DBD in air can be highly non-uniform, particularly on topographically non-uniform surfaces such as in most living tissues. This creates significant limitations for use of DBDs in wound care and other biomedical applications. In this book, development of a novel non-thermal plasma system, namely nanosecond-pulsed DBD, which addresses this important limitation, is presented. Nanosecond-pulsed DBD is shown to be uniform in air at atmospheric pressure and much more effective in killing bacteria than conventional DBDs, particularly on topographically non-uniform surfaces. Thus, this new plasma system is potentially convenient for in vivo and hospital sterilization cases.