Dielectric barrier discharges: Pulsed breakdown, electrical characterization and Chemistry

The application of atmospheric pressure discharges in new fields like environmental protection, surface treatment or life-sciences requires a profound knowledge on the plasma parameters and properties. This includes the characterization of the breakdown processes triggering plasma chemistry, the proper determination of the electrical parameters and the description of the dominant chemical pathways. This contribution aims to present new approaches regarding these three topics for pulsed driven Dielectric Barrier Discharges (DBDs) in particular. Fast electrical, optical and spectroscopic methods enable the study of ignition, breakdown statistics and spatio-temporally resolved development of pulsed DBD microdischarges. The determination of electrical parameters such as discharge current, gas gap voltage, instantaneous power and energy as well as the charge transferred through the gas gap is based on a simple equivalent circuit which is consistent with sinusoidal-voltage driven or miniature pulsed driven DBDs. The characterization of the dominant chemical pathways of advanced plasma processes discusses also several examples including secondary effects, such as adsorption-enhanced VOC conversion by DBD plasma treatment.