Spatiotemporal characteristics of a patterned dielectric barrier discharge controlled by various mechanisms

¹ College of Physics Science and Technology, Hebei University - Baoding 071002, PRC
² College of Quality and Technical Supervision, Hebei University - Baoding 071002, PRC
³ Hebei Key Laboratory of Optic-electronic Information Materials - Baoding 071002, PRC
⁴ School of Physics, Beijing Institute of Technology - Beijing 100081, PRC

^(a) pyy1616@163.com

Received: 12 July 2014
Accepted: 13 October 2014

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comprehensive discussion on various mechanisms collectively controlling the spatiotemporal characteristics of a patterned dielectric barrier discharge. High-speed images correlated with current pulse phases show that the square pattern is composed of two interleaving square sublattices with a time-reversal symmetric discharge order, whose spatial and temporal stabilities are explained by surface-charge–induced activation-inhibition mechanism. Images of 100 ns order demonstrate the localized synchronicity of the development of one single sublattice, which may be attributed to photo-ionization. Through the investigation of light emissions of the two sublattices, a surface-charge sharing mechanism is proposed, which is also responsible for the stability of the patterned discharge.