High repetition rate generator for pulsed capacitively coupled discharges

There has been an increasing realisation that the intense chemical activity generated by nonthermal electrical breakdown phenomena may be exploited either as a mechanism for the destruction of gaseous waste materials or as the basis for an effective chemical synthesis technique. In this report the authors discuss some of the characteristics which a discharge suitable for this application may have and some of the efforts to realise these concepts in the laboratory. The work has concentrated on one particular form of nonthermal discharge, namely the dielectric barrier discharge, or silent discharge, and the development of a pulse generator suitable for driving such a discharge