Discharge current development in two-electrode spark gap switches

The present study describes the result of an improved numerical method applied to our two-electrode spark gap discharge. The time evolution of the ionization current is obtained and mechanisms describing ionization growth in discharge are presented. The effect of E/N has been investigated by changing either the applied gap voltage or by varying the nitrogen gas pressure. Some fluctuations in the exponential ionization growth are noticed which are related to the secondary ionization by the cathode photoelectric emission. Simulated snapshots were obtained that clearly show the image of electron avalanches traversing the discharge gap. My results are compared with other computational methods and they are in good agreement providing higher accuracy in the results. The advantage of my results is that I have considered a more accurate finite-element method for the numerical computation in which. considers the growth of the discharge in both the axial and radial directions with a good stability.