Physics and chemistry of partial discharge and corona - recent advances and future challenges

The focus of the present review is on relatively recent work published within the past fifteen years dealing primarily with the basic physical and chemical processes responsible for, or associated with, the discharge phenomenon. Particular emphasis is given to work carried out in the NIST laboratory using examples of results obtained for air, SF/sub 6/, and SF/sub 6//O/sub 2/ gas mixtures in point-plane or point-dielectric barrier gaps.