Reduction in the breakdown voltage of a high-pressure discharge with an array of 200-400-/spl mu/m-diameter microdischarges: application to arc lamp ignition

The breakdown voltage (Vs) for a discharge in Ar at pressures between 35 and 300 torr has been reduced significantly with an array of cylindrical microdischarge devices mounted behind the tungsten cathode. For P/sub Ar/ = 50 torr, V/sub S/ drops by approximately a factor of two, relative to that for a conventional discharge, when the microdischarge array is in operation. The injection of electron-ion pairs into the anode-cathode gap region by the array also decreases the formative and statistical time lags associated with the startup of a cold lamp.