"Gasdynamic Diode" Formation for High-Voltage NS Discharges

It was demonstrated by numerical calculations, that the streamer propagation can be blocked both in the cases of streamer’s interaction with a low and high gas densities in the layer formed across the propagation axix if its thickness is large enough. In the case of a thin high-density layer, streamers overlap the gap both for positive and negative polarities on the high-voltage electrode. On the other hand, the development of a discharge in the gap with a low-density gas layer strongly depends on the polarity of applied voltage. For a relatively small layer thickness (δ < r m ), the gap exhibits selective "conductivity": a negative discharge can develop up to a low-voltage electrode, while a positive discharge stops in a low density layer.