A comparative study of three different types of barrier discharges in air at atmospheric pressure by cross-correlation spectroscopy

Abstract

Microdischarges in a barrier discharge with an asymmetric electrode arrangement (‘metal–dielectric’) were investigated with fine temporal (down to 10 ps) and spatial (down to 10 µm) resolution by the technique of cross-correlation spectroscopy. The discharge was operated in dry air at atmospheric pressure. The spatio-temporal distributions of the light intensities of the 0–0 transitions of the second positive (λ = 337.1 nm) and first negative (λ = 391.5 nm) systems of molecular nitrogen were compared with the corresponding experimental results for a symmetric electrode arrangement (‘dielectric–dielectric’) and for the coplanar barrier discharge. For all the discharge types being considered, the mechanism of electrical breakdown was found to consist of the Townsend pre-breakdown phase, the phase of ionizing wave propagation and the decay phase. Despite the qualitative similarity of the microdischarge development in different electrode arrangements, a detailed comparison of certain discharge characteristics (ionizing wave velocity, spatially or temporally integrated light intensity) enables us to reveal the influence of the electrode configurations on the process of electrical breakdown.

Phase resolved cross-correlation spectroscopy on surface barrier discharges in air at atmospheric pressure

“…During the first MD the dielectric is positively charged. Similar phenomena are known from volume barrier discharges as well as different coplanar and SBD arrangements [10,[14][15][16][17][18]. The residual charges weaken the electric field locally and thus, the next breakdown will not occur at the same position as long as the electric field outside this zone is higher.…”

“…In case of sinusoidal driven VBDs the MD development in the volume (consisting of Townsend-prephase, cathode directed streamer, anode glow and decay phase) was found Send offprint requests to: brandenburg@inp-greifswald.de to be independent on the phase [6]. However, the MD development and distribution on the surface of the dielectric in all barrier discharges (VBD, CBD, SBD and so called sliding discharges) are influenced by residual charges [9][10][11][12]. On SBDs we found a similar behavior, which will be investigated in this contribution more detailed.…”

Sub-nanosecond delays of light emitted by streamer in atmospheric pressure air: Analysis of N2(C3Πu) and N2+(B2Σu+) emissions and fundamental streamer structure

“…A single shot of the breakdown event is shown in figure 1. For the case of streamer measurements in asymmetric barrier discharge (one metallic electrode and the other covered by dielectrics [39]), the setup was the following: The applied sinusoidal voltage has amplitude of 11 kV p−p (the metal electrode was powered, while the dielectric electrode grounded) and frequency of 60 kHz. As a dielectrics, an alumina of 96% purity was used and the discharge gap was 1 mm.…”

Spatial and temporal evolution of microdischarges in Surface Dielectric Barrier Discharges for aeronautical applications plasmas

“…DBDs and so also SDBDs driven by high voltage oscillating signals applied to electrodes happen generally in short bursts of activity, concentrated in two separated portions of the wave period. They are composed of a pretty large number of individual events, carrying electrical currents in the air gap between the electrodes, a microdischarge [4], each triggered by the propagation of an ionization wave [5][6]. There are several tricky aspects, including the geometry of the electrodes and the charging of the dielectric material surface facing the discharge region.…”