On the spatio-temporal development of pulsed barrier discharges: influence of duty cycle variation

Abstract

Abstract The paper presents experiments on the spatial and temporal structure of the breakdown process of microdischarges (MD). For the first time simultaneous streak and iCCD images of individual filaments in a pulsed driven dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) with 1 mm gap in a gas mixture of 0.1 vol% O 2 in N 2 at atmospheric pressure are recorded. Furthermore current and voltage measurements with fast probes give access to the electrical discharge characteristics such as transferred charge and power. For asymmetric pulses there is a significant difference in the spatial structure as well as in the temporal behaviour of the MDs between the rising and the falling slopes of the high voltage pulse. If the time between rising and falling slopes is reversed all effects reverse as well. For symmetric pulses there are no significant differences between the MD at rising and falling slopes which is in accordance with a sinusoidal DBD operation.