Low pressure glow discharge plasmas are of great interest in fundamental research as well as in
the microelectronic industry and material technology. But, these plasmas must be contained in
costly air tight enclosures (massive vacuum reactors) making them highly expensive and time
consuming. Also, the density of activated particles is relatively low. Therefore, one of the recent
trends focuses on developing new plasma sources, which operate at atmospheric pressure, but
retain the properties of low pressure media. The economic and operational advantages of
operating at 1 atm have led to the development of a variety of atmospheric plasma sources for
several scientific and industrial applications.