Micro-discharge and its applications

Micro-discharge happens in a limited space. The gap spacing has the magnitude of sub-millimeters or below. Compared with the traditional gas discharge, micro-discharge has some unique characteristics due to the micro-scale and hence attracts a great amount of interest. On one hand, the micro-discharge system is easy to be miniaturized thus having great potential in applications such as biomedicine, micro-region thermal cooling, micro-electro-mechanical system, ionic blower, electrostatic-fluid accelerator, gas sensor, ion sources, liquid discharge technic, and electrostatic detection. On the other hand, accompanying with the rapid development of integrated circuits, micro-electronics technology and micro-electro-mechanical systems, the dimension of the conductor electrodes as well as the gap spacing between them has been sharply reduced. A possible risk comes from electrostatic discharge under low voltage breakdown that could turn to a hazard source for micro-electronics, initiate explosive materials or devices as well as electric power system. We review and summarize numerous experimental, computational and analytical works on micro-discharge and micro-plasma in recent years, and introduce progress in understanding the mechanisms and physics of micro-discharge and in the applications.