Investigating CO2 streamer inception in repetitive pulsed discharges

Abstract

In this study, we investigate the responsible species and processes involved in repetitive pulsed streamer inception in CO2. We applied a 10 kV high-voltage (HV) pulse with a repetition frequency of 10 Hz and pulse width of 1 ms to a pin electrode which is placed 160 mm apart from the grounded plane electrode. We measured the inception times by a photo-multiplier tube (delay between the rising edge of the HV pulse and the rising edge of the photo-multiplier waveform) for 600 high voltage cycles. We observed one peak in the histogram of inception times with a median of 1.2 μs. To identify the source of this peak, we applied a negative or positive low-voltage (LV) pulse before the main HV pulse to manipulate the leftover space charges. Three different phenomena are observed: (1) drift, (2) neutralization, and (3) ionization in the LV pulse. At low LV amplitude and pulse width, the peak starts to drift toward the faster and slower inception times under a positive and negative LV pulse, respectively. However, under the same LV pulse configuration for positive and negative LV pulse, the observed shift in inception times is not the same. We present a hypothesis to explain this asymmetry based on the difference of the detachment processes between air and CO2.