Study on the memristive nature of dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Electrical modelling is a very important method for studying the dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). The traditional models usually simulate the dynamical behaviors of DBD through combination of many circuit elements1 and have obtained more and more accurate results as the number of parameters increases. However the increasing parameters severely increase the complexity of the models, and as a result it is difficult to flexibly describe the dynamics of the DBD according to the actual operating situation with these models. In addition, the traditional models can not reflect the inherent mechanism of the DBD. Memristor, which is a nonlinear circuit element with both resistive and memory properties and is known as the fourth fundamental circuit element, has shown many characteristics similar to the DBD, such as the parallel hysteresis phenomenon2 and the application of one-dimensional fluid model in their physical models3. The similarities between the DBD and the memristor intrigue us to wonder whether the DBD is a memristor in nature. If this assumption is true, the electrical simulation circuit could be greatly simplified and its applications would also be pushed forward tremendously. Moreover, this theory would greatly promote studies on the mechanism of the DBD. In this paper, we demonstrate that the DBD has fingerprint characteristics of the memristor through simulations using a one-dimensional fluid model, preliminarily showing the memristive nature of the DBD.