Spatio-temporal evolution of ion current extracted from pulsed dielectric barrier discharge

Abstract

Abstract In the present study, the influence of various factors on the shape of the ion cloud extracted from the specific discharge setup was investigated. The overall installment presented a surface dielectric barrier discharge plasma in the air fed by impulse high voltage. The effect of the amplitude, polarity, and duration for single and repetitive voltage pulses were examined. The patterns of ion current distribution depending on the gas gap length and the average field strength were obtained, and the effect of pulse duration and frequency on the amount of the extracted charge were examined. It was shown that the extracted charge was non-uniformly distributed in the gap volume during single and periodic voltage pulses. The effect of volume charge accumulation in the gap at high pulse repetition rate was shown. Computer simulations demonstrated that the main role in the ion cloud shape distortion was caused by the surface charge deposited on the dielectric barrier.