Spatiotemporal variations of the electrical potential on surface dielectric barrier discharges

Abstract

In this study, the temporal variation of an electric potential distribution was measured in a surface dielectric barrier discharge experiment using the Pockels effect. A branching pattern and homogeneous distribution were respectively observed when positive and negative voltages were applied. When continuous alternating current was applied to the electrode, the spatial distributions of the electric potential significantly changed between the first and subsequent discharge cycles. The results indicate that the electrostatic repulsive forces caused by the residual charges on the dielectric surface affect the dynamic patterns of the discharge morphology.

Surface-charge control strategy for enhanced electrohydrodynamic force in dielectric barrier discharge plasma actuators

“…A previous numerical study reported that the charge and the electric potential on the dielectric surface varied synchronously with the AC voltage [25]. In addition, a previous experimental study performed a spatiotemporal measurement of the electric potential on the surface and showed a similar trend to the result obtained by the numerical simulation [26].…”

“…As discussed above, the dynamics of the surface charge has an important role in the discharge process and the ionic wind generation in DBD plasma actuators. Previous experimental studies demonstrated that the surface charge distribution and surface electrical-potential distribution are obtained as a spatiotemporal measurement using Pockels effect [26,33,34]. The refractive index n(E) for light propagating through a Pockels crystal, which exhibits Pockels electro-optical effect, is proportional to the electric field E applied to the Pockels crystal as follows:…”

“…In this study, we carried out a spatiotemporal measurement of the electric potential on the dielectric surface using the Pockels effect [26] and measured the flow field induced by a DBD plasma actuator in quiescent air using particle image velocimetry (PIV) technique. We experimentally demonstrate that the surface charge accumulation can be suppressed by using an additional exposed electrode downstream, resulting in the significant improvement of the velocity of the induced ionic wind as expected in our previous numerical study [31].…”

Filament analysis based on mathematical morphology of surface dielectric barrier discharges in N2/O2 mixtures

“…Besides, differences in current time response were confirmed depending on the discharge gas. Mitsuhashi et al 6 . measured spatiotemporal charge distribution on the dielectric surface under AC SDBD and reported that residual charge in the 1st cycle of AC voltage inhibits further development of discharge.…”

Surface streamer patterns induced by a strong vertical electric field under impulse voltages

“…The Pockels effect method firstly proposed by Kumada et al realized online measurement of surface charges [9]. This method can trace the surface streamer development process in real time in detail [10]. The electrostatic probe method is widely applied in surface charge distribution due to its flexible adaptation for insulators of different shapes [11,12].…”