Impact of Plasma Seeding on the Propagation of Ionization Waves Launched by Fast Voltage Pulses

The impact of the pulse repetition rate of nanosecond-scale voltage pulses on the generation of a plasma discharge in a glass tube is examined. Space-time images of the plasma-induced emission are used to quantify the velocity of the ionizing wave as the plasma propagates across the tube for various pulsed voltage repetition rates.