Effects of pulse parameters on the atmospheric-pressure dielectric barrier discharges driven by the high-voltage pulses in Ar and N2

In this work, the atmospheric-pressure dielectric barrier discharges in Ar and N2 excited by repetitive voltage pulses have been numerically studied using a 1D fluid model. The differences between the discharge characteristics for Ar and N2 have been presented when changing the parameters of the applied pulse voltage. In this work we present the following significant results. With an increase of the amplitude of the applied pulse voltage, the increase of the maximum discharge current density in Ar is evident, compared with N2; and the discharge mode changes from the weak atmospheric-pressure glow discharge (APGD) to the standard APGD for Ar, and from the atmospheric-pressure Townsend discharge to the APGD for N2. In addition, the increase of the averaged electron density in N2 is more evident than that in Ar, especially when the standard APGD occurs in N2. The increasing frequency leads to lower maximum discharge current density for Ar, however, the reverse is true for N2. With an increase of the pulse width of the applied pulse voltage, the averaged electron density and the maximum discharge current density change slightly in Ar, but they increase drastically in N2.