from the conferences organized by TANGER Ltd.
Water is often used as a medium for preparation of nanoparticles in plasma. One way to obtain plasma in liquids is a nanosecond high voltage pulse applied on micrometer sharp electrode, so that the electric discharge is developed. Liquid water under the action of sharp pulse of the electric field may be disrupted so that cavities of nanometer scale would eventually appear and expand. Owing the electric field forces, those nanocavities rapidly elongate to the form of long needle-like ruptures in the liquid bulk. We study electron acceleration in these ruptures and analyze the production of secondary electrons in the water near the nanocavity surfaces. For electron transport in the nanocavity and for electron water-interactions we use Monte Carlo model based on Geant4-DNA simulation toolkit. Nanocavities are modelled as hollow cylindrical voids in liquid water with homogeneous electric field inside oriented along the cylindrical axis. Due to the nanometric scale of these voids, electrons can move collisionless inside, where are also accelerated by the action of the electric field. Primary electrons are injected as monoenergetic isotropic source from the inner surface of the void. We seek physical conditions, a combination of electric field strength and geometry of the cavity that would lead to the production of more than one secondary electron per single primary electron. This study is relevant for understanding of initial phases of electric discharge development in liquid water.
Keywords: In-liquid plasma, nanocavities, electrostriction, electron multiplication© This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.