title: High-resolution measurements of the electric field at the streamer arrival to the cathode: a unification of the streamer-initiated gas-breakdown mechanism.
abstract: A time-correlated single-photon counting technique was used to verify the formation of a cathode-directed streamer inside the narrow cathode region following the interpulse phase of regular negative corona Trichel pulses in ambient air. A purely experimental approach was used to determine the spatiotemporal development of the electric field during the Trichel pulse rise with an extremely high resolution of 10 μm and tens of picoseconds. The results confirm the positive-streamer mechanism for Trichel pulse formation and provide supportive evidence for the hypothesis that the formation of a primary cathode-directed streamer occurs always in any streamer-initiated breakdown and prebreakdown phenomena associated with cathode spot formation.
authors.affiliation: Leibniz Institute for Plasma Science and Technology (INP Greifswald), 17489 Greifswald, Germany. hoder@inp-greifswald.de
authors.forename: Tomáš
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hoder
authors.forename: Mirko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cernák
authors.forename: Jean
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Paillol
authors.forename: Detlef
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Loffhagen
authors.forename: Ronny
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Brandenburg
mesh_terms: D004566:Electrodes; D004574:Electromagnetic Fields; D058626:Plasma Gases / Q000737:chemistry*; D011874:Radiometry / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D058626:Plasma Gases