Dielectric Barrier Discharge using Macro-Porous Alumina Membrane

Summary form only given. Anodic aluminum membrane can be a candidate of new dielectric barrier electrode which enables the low sustaining voltage and uniform discharge at nearly atmospheric pressure. The anodic aluminum has a unique structure composed of submicron pores of which size is nearly same as the mean free path of intermolecular collision at atmospheric pressure. A stable barrier discharge has been generated by applying rectangular pulsed voltage between an aluminum plate and the membrane in Ne and Xe at pressure of around 10⁴ Pa. The plasma is confined between the electrodes when the mean free path of molecules exceeds the pore-diameter and is considered not to be generated within the pore. At higher pressure where the mean free path of the molecules is nearly same as the pore-diameter, plasma seems to be generated within the pore because the temporal capacitance of the membrane increased that is caused by the penetration of the plasma. The decay time of the ions and metastable molecules, which is evaluated by a V-Q Lissajuo´s figure, decreases when the plasma is generated within the pore, because the produced ions rapidly lost by the interaction with the pore-walls. The breakdown voltage of the membrane of 60 micrometer in thickness was also measured at atmospheric pressure of air. The membrane with the 20 nm pore size is smaller than the mean free path shows higher breakdown voltage than that with 200 nm pores.