Large gap atmospheric pressure barrier discharges using ferroelectric materials

This work reports a phenomenological comparative study of atmospheric pressure barrier plasmas using ferroelectric (ferroelectric barrier discharge (FBD)) and dielectric (dielectric barrier discharge (DBD)) plates to moderate the discharge. For FBD operation and large inter-electrode distances, experiments with helium carried out in a parallel plate reactor as a function of applied voltage have shown an enhancement of one order of magnitude in the charge transferred through the circuit. In a similar way to DBDs, FBDs rendered a laterally localized arrangement of discrete columnar discharges with a pattern distribution and an overall current intensity that depended on operation conditions. However, unlike the regular columnar pattern found for DBD operation, discharge columns in the FBD mode appear randomly and inhomogeneously distributed on the ferroelectric surface. This geometrical behavior of FBD plasma columns, as well as the singular variation of current with applied voltage and the particular shape characteristics of the current discharge curves have been accounted for by the high capacity of ferroelectric surfaces to randomly accumulate charge and to promote the emission of secondary electrons in the presence of a plasma. (paper)