Microcavity plasma arrays of inverse pyramidal cavities fabricated on p-Si wafers act as
localized dielectric barrier discharges. When operated at atmospheric pressure in argon and
excited with high voltage at 10 kHz, a strong interaction between individual cavities is
observed leading to wave-like optical emission propagating along the surface of the array.
This phenomenon is numerically investigated. The computed ionization wave propagates
with a speed of 5 km/s, which agrees well with experiments. The wave propagation is due to …