Experimental research on characteristics of nozzle-to-plate dielectric barrier discharge

Nozzle-to-plate dielectric barrier discharge is an effective method to generate non- thermal plasma. To obtain the characteristics of the discharge, this experiment was carried out in an open air environment in the laboratory. And the research mainly included several aspects, such as the diffuse angle of plasma channel, voltage - current characteristic as well as the effect of dielectric's position between the nozzle and the grounding plate on the characteristic of the current-waveform. The experimental results show that the diffuse angle tends to increase with the applied voltage. The electrode distances between the nozzle and the grounding plate is in inverse proportion to the diffuse angle under the same applied voltage conditions. The shorter electrode distances are, the larger diffuse angles will be. The results about voltage - current characteristic indicate that the more number of nozzles is, the larger electric currents when the applied voltage reached the discharge inception one are. Nevertheless, the current of the multi-nozzle is not equal to the simple sum of the single nozzle. Also the shorter electrode distances correspond to the larger increase range of currents with the applied voltage increasing. Furthermore, the discharge characteristic is related to the position of dielectric layer. When the dielectric layer is set at the middle between two electrodes, the better discharge effect can be attained than that when it is close to the nozzle or grounding plate.