Repetitively nanosecond-pulse breakdown of air at an atmospheric pressure

The breakdown characteristics of atmospheric air, for parallel-plate gaps, by single pulse and repetitive burst conditions were investigated under varying applied pulsed voltage and different gap lengths, respectively. The electrical parameters such as applied voltage and breakdown current, and the observational breakdown time lags and the repetitive stressing times are obtained. Experimental results show that the repetitive burst breakdown electric field is much lower than that of a single pulse, especially at repetitive bursts of 0.5 and 1 kHz. The observational breakdown time lag τ and repetitively stressing time T are gradually reduced with increase of electrical field E, and these reducing trends seem to be big under lower pulse repetition frequencies (PRF), but smaller and more adjacent at higher PRF (0.5, 1 kHz). The discharge process under higher PRF bursts is quite different from low PRF bursts and single pulses, for which there is a slim difference. Some discussions were introduced to explain τ and the discharge process.