Evolution of the pulse width in dielectric barrier atmospheric pressure discharge

A study of the evolution of the pulse width in homogeneous dielectric barrier discharge at atmospheric pressure with helium as the working gas is reported by using a one-dimensional fluid model. In this paper, a new computational method is presented to estimate the pulse width through calculating the time interval between the breakdown voltage and the extinguishing voltage. The effects on the discharge characteristics of the applied voltage and excitation frequency are studied based on the computational data. The results of the simulation show that the pulse width is observed to be narrower and the time intervals between two consecutive current pulses decrease with increasing amplitude and excitation frequency, which indicates that the homogeneous discharge is susceptible to the filamentary mode. The simulation results support the conclusion that in order to restrain the transition from the glow mode to filamentary mode, the applied voltage and excitation frequency should be kept within an appropriate range.