Electrical characterization of microdischarges produced by dielectric barrier discharge in dry air at atmospheric pressure

This work addresses the case of millimetre sized plane-to-plane dielectric barrier discharge with sinusoidal voltage between 1 and 60 kHz for different configurations in air at atmospheric pressure. The first aim of this work is to achieve a representative statistical analysis of the electrical characteristics of the microdischarges. The numerical data treatment presented here enables us to determine the maximum current, the duration, the amount of charge and the triggering voltage for each current pulse. Both the average values as well as the deviations are checked. The relative influence of the operating parameters (voltage, gas flow rate, gap width, frequency) on the local surface polarization, electron attachment and temperature affecting microdischarge characteristics has been depicted in different arrangements. A special attention is paid to the influence of dielectric walls inside the discharge gap, perpendicular to the electrodes. Besides, this study allows the identification of the operating conditions for which all the microdischarges can be considered identical to study the local physical and chemical processes around each microdischarge.