Array Micro - Hollow Cathode Discharge Triggered By Nanosecond Pulse

Hollow cathode discharges are gas discharges between an arbitrary anode and a cathode having a cavity or hollow. Previous studies have thoroughly characterized the hollow cathode discharge under a variety of conditions, and many studies focus on methods of creating large volume atmospheric glow plasmas utilizing microhollow cathode glow discharges driven by a DC voltage. This kind of discharge aims to many potential application such as plasma reflectors and absorbers of electromagnetic radiation, surface treatment and excimer lamps. Array studies are numerous and varied. The current for dc operation is limited by the thermal loading of the electrode structure to10mA per discharge. With pulsed operation thermal loading of the electrodes can be largely avoided. We have studied the discharge under pulsed condition and were able to extend the current range to50A, and parallel operation of microhollow cathode discharge was used as the trigger of gas switch for low trigger voltage and multichannel discharge.The characteristics of micro-hollow cathode discharge are detailed Studied with changing trigger voltage and different MHCD structure. The experiment results show that if the trigger voltage is not high enough, MHCD will not breakdown, once the discharge voltage reaches the breakdown voltage, the discharging process begins. More microhollow cathode holes and100μm diameter of the microhollow cathode hole result in lower trigger voltage. With a simplify of MHCD as a resistance and a capacitance in parallel, good agreement is obtained about the simulation and the measure of current.We have examined how triggering structure affects the trigger voltage, the delay time and jitter of the switch. Trigger current, the number of microhollow cathode holes, the diameter of the microhollow cathode hole and the duty factor of the switch were all investigated in the experiment. It has been shown that more microhollow cathode holes and100μm diameter of the microhollow cathode hole result in lower trigger voltage. Also, higher trigger current, larger duty factor of the switch and more microhollow cathode holes result in shorter switch delay time with decreased jitter. The trigger voltage is much lower than the switch working voltage, and the trigger energy is as lower as1mJ.