Study on electrical characteristics of barrier-free atmospheric air diffuse discharge generated by nanosecond pulses and long wire electrodes

In room-temperature atmospheric air, the large-scale diffuse plasmas can be generated via high-voltage nanosecond pulses with short rise-time and wire electrodes. Diffuse discharge with the wire electrode length up to 110.0 cm and the discharge spacing of several centimeters has been investigated in this paper. Electrical characteristics of diffuse discharge have been analyzed by their optical photographs and measuring of the voltage and current waveforms. Experimental results show the electrode spacing, and the length of wire electrodes can influence the intensity and mode transition of diffuse discharge. The characteristic of current waveforms is that there are several current oscillation peaks at the time of applied pulsed voltage peak, and at the tail of applied pulse, the conduction current component will compensate the displacement one so that the measured current is unidirectional in diffuse discharge mode. The transition from diffuse discharge to arc discharge is always with the increasing of conduction current density. As for nanosecond pulses with long tail, the long wire electrodes are help for generating non-equilibrium diffuse plasmas.