Characteristics of Microplasma Discharge Propagation Over the Titanium Surface Covered with a Thin Oxide Film

— The propagation and structure of a microplasma discharge initiated in vacuum by a pulsed plasma flow with a density of ∼10 13 cm − 3 on the surface of a titanium sample covered with a thin continuous dielectric titanium oxide film with a thickness of 2–6 nm were studied experimentally when the electric current of the discharge changes from 50 to 400 A. It was found that the microplasma discharge glow at the macroscale has a branched structure of the dendrite type, which at the microscale consists of a large number of brightly glowing “point” formations, cathode spots, localized on the metal surface. The resulting erosion structure on the titanium surface is visually “identical” to the structure of the discharge glow and consists of a large number of separate non-overlapping microcraters with characteristic sizes from 0.1–3 µm, which are formed at the sites of localization of cathode spots at distances of up to 20 µm from each other. It was found that the propagation of a single microplasma discharge over the titanium surface covered with a thin oxide film with a thickness of 2–6 nm occurs at an average velocity of 15–70 m/s when the amplitude of the discharge electric current changes in the range of 50–400 A. In this case, the microplasma discharge propagation on the microscale has a “jumping” character: the plasma of “motionless” burning cathode spots, during their lifetime of ~1 μs, initiates the excitation of new microdischarges, which create new cathode spots at localization distances of 1–20 μm from the primary cathode spots. This process repeated many times during a microplasma discharge pulse with a duration from 0.1 to 20 ms.