Influence of the sign and magnitude of a surface charge on the breakdown voltage of a barrier corona discharge in Ar

Abstract

The topic of this article is related to the breakdown phenomena in the surface dielectric barrier discharge (SDBD). The surface charge, locally deposited on the dielectric barrier, changes markedly the configuration and intensity of the electric field both on the barrier and in the gas gap. In turn, a change in the local electric field affects the rate of ionization multiplication of electrons in this area and, accordingly, influences the breakdown conditions of both volume and surface barrier discharges. In the case of sinusoidal SDBD, the first breakdown in each next half-cycle will be controlled by the charge deposited on the barrier during the previous half-cycle. Contrariwise, if there are several successive breakdowns in the half-cycle, each next breakdown after the first one will be controlled predominantly by the charge and plasma created by the previous breakdown in this half-cycle but not only by the charge deposited in the previous half-cycle. These features of the SDBD breakdown were investigated by the example of the barrier corona in argon at atmospheric pressure in the pinto-plane configuration. This discharge allows us the controlling of the location of the deposited charge. Surface charge was deposited in advance and by the SDBD itself.