In the present paper, a detailed investigation of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the recently developed time reversal microwave plasma source is presented. This novel source allows to ignite a plasma at a desired location in a reverberant cavity by focusing the electromagnetic energy in time and space. An important feature is the possibility to control the plasma position only by changing the input microwave waveform. The source is operated in a repetitive pulsed mode with very low duty cycle (typically 5 10⁻²%). Nanosecond pulses have rise time lower than 1ns. The generated plasmas have typical sizes in the millimeter range and are observed using imaging for dozens of nanoseconds. The plasma behavior is investigated for different pressures and repetition frequencies. A strong dependence is observed between each discharge pulse suggesting the existence of an important memory effect. The latter is probably due to argon metastable atoms and/or residual charges remaining in the post-discharge and allowing the next breakdown to occur at a moderate electric field.

在本文中，对最近开发的时间反转微波等离子体源的时空动力学进行了详细的研究。通过在时间和空间上聚焦电磁能，这种新颖的光源可以在混响腔中的所需位置点燃等离子体。一个重要的特征是仅通过改变输入微波波形来控制等离子体位置的可能性。源在具有非常低占空比（通常为5 10 ^-2）的重复脉冲模式下运行％）。纳秒脉冲的上升时间低于1ns。产生的等离子体的典型大小在毫米范围内，并使用数十纳秒的成像进行观察。针对不同的压力和重复频率研究了等离子体行为。在每个放电脉冲之间观察到强烈的依赖性​​，表明存在重要的记忆效应。后者可能是由于后放电中残留有氩亚稳原子和/或残余电荷，并导致下一次击穿在中等电场下发生。