Boundary Effect of Planar Glow Dielectric Barrier Discharge and Its Influence on the Discharge Structure

The dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) in the glow regime in neon has been investigated by experiment and two-dimensional (2D) fluid modeling. The discharge was carried out in a planar DBD system with segmented-electrodes driven by square-wave voltage. The results show that the glow DBD originates in the center of the electrode and expands outward to the electrode edge during each half cycle of the voltage, forming a radial structure. The discharge decays firstly in the inner area but sustains longer in the edge area, showing a reversed discharge area. The discharge cannot completely cover the entire electrode surface, but remains a border of non- or weak discharge. The fluid modeling shows a similar result in agreement with the experiments. The simulations indicate that the electric field in the edge area is distorted due to the boundary effect so that the electric field and charge distribution are different from that in the inner part. The distorted field reduces the longitudinal component near the edge and causes the local field to be lower than that in the center, and hence makes the discharge behindhand. It also induces a transverse field that makes the discharge extend radially outward to the edge. The boundary effect plays an important role in the glow DBD structure.