Influence of external parameters on nonlinear behaviors in a helium dielectric-barrier discharge excited by a modulated voltage

Abstract

Using a one-dimensional fluid model, period multiplication and chaos behaviors in the time domain are numerically investigated in atmospheric pressure helium dielectric-barrier discharge excited by a modulated sinusoidal voltage. The results indicate that with the increasing duty ratio of the modulated voltage, various nonlinear behaviors are obtained, including asymmetric single-period, period-three, period-seven, chaotic, and symmetric single-period states. More details are revealed that period-four, period-nine, and period-thirteen states can also be observed between period-three and period-seven states. For the period-three state, there are six current pulses in each current period, which have different amplitudes with each other. Besides the duty ratio, the sinusoidal frequency of the modulated voltage is varied, which results in similar nonlinear behaviors. Additionally, under a duty ratio of 80%, it maintains a stable period-two state with the increasing voltage amplitude or the decreasing gap width. During this process, the pulse number and duration time increase per half voltage cycle. Finally, spatial distributions of the electric field, electron density, and ion density are investigated for the novel period-three state, which is qualitatively explained through analyzing the influence of the averaged density of electrons and metastable states just before the discharge moments.