Initialization and Development of Electric Breakdown in Water

Summary form only given. The understanding of initialization and development of the streamers plays an essential role in the electric breakdown process in water. It is generally accepted that these bush-like streamers are propagating low-density gaseous plasma phases that can appear within nanoseconds after the application of an electric field. We are presenting a model for the development of breakdown process in water subjected to high electric field. It is demonstrated that the surface tension at the interface of the low-density phase cavity and water tends to suppress the growth of the channel, while the high surface charge density interacting with both external and internal electric field tends to enhance the growth. It is the competition of these two factors that produces the filamentary structure observed in the breakdown process. Results show that the propagation velocity of the streamers at the initial stage can be up to several kilometers per second, which is in accordance with other research group´s experiments.