Barrier properties influence on the surface dielectric barrier discharge driven by single voltage pulses of different duration

This paper presents the measurements of discharge length for surface dielectric barrier discharge driven by single voltage pulses with different voltage slopes (0.05-3.4kV ns(-1)) and different amplitudes of the pulses (7-15 kV). The measurements were carried out for different barrier dielectric materials characterized by relative dielectric permittivity epsilon from 2 to 35 and different thickness (0.8-5 mm). For all the voltage pulses, the discharge has a channeled structure and the discharge length decreases with increased epsilon value. The discharge length dependence on dielectric thickness is not notable. The comparison of experimental results with predictions of the analytical model leads to the conclusion that for positive voltage pulses, the discharge development occurs as a set of separate 3D streamers rather than a 2D plasma sheet even in the case of maximal considered 3.4 kV ns(-1) voltage slope. The measured discharge lengths lay in between the predictions of the 2D and 3D models.