The impacts of magnetic field on repetitive nanosecond pulsed dielectric barrier discharge in air

Abstract

In this paper, the impacts of the parallel magnetic field on the repetitive nanosecond pulsed dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) are experimentally investigated by optical and electrical measurements. The DBD is generated between two parallel-plate electrodes in the ambient air with the stationary magnetic field on the order of 1 T. The experimental results show that additional microdischarge channels are generated and the photocurrent intensity of the plasma is increased by the magnetic field. The microdischarge channels develop along the magnetic field lines and the diffuse background emission of the discharge is stronger in the DBD with the magnetic field. As the pulse repetition frequency decreases from 1200 Hz to 100 Hz, only the photocurrent intensity of the third discharge that occurred at about 500 ns is noticeably increased by the additional magnetic field. It is believed that the enhancement of the memory effect and the confinement of the magnetic field on electrons are the main reasons.