Formation of diffuse and spark discharges between two needle electrodes with the scattering of particles

The development of a nanosecond discharge in a pin-to-pin gap filled with air at atmospheric pressure has been studied with high temporal and spatial resolutions from a breakdown start to the spark decay. Positive and negative nanosecond voltage pulses with an amplitude of tens of kilovolts were applied. Time-resolved images of the discharge development were taken with a four-channel Intensified Charge Coupled Device (ICCD) camera. The minimum delay between the camera channels could be as short as ≈ 0.1 ns. This made it possible to study the gap breakdown process with subnanosecond resolution. It was observed that a wide-diameter streamer develops from the high-voltage pointed electrode. The ionization processes near the grounded pin electrode started when the streamer crossed half of the gap. After bridging the gap by the streamer, a diffuse discharge was formed. The development of spark leaders from bright spots on the surface of the pointed electrodes was observed at the next stage. It was found that the rate of development of the spark leader is an order of magnitude lower than that of the wide-diameter streamer. Long thin luminous tracks were observed against the background of a discharge plasma glow. It has been established that the tracks are adjacent to brightly glowing spots on the electrodes and are associated with the flight of small particles.