A device for near-surface streamer-induced technologies

A well known Masuda-type device (Masuda and Kiss, 1984) is studied in the light of its conventional and modern practical applications. The device is designed as a dielectric plate (of 1 mm thickness) with periodic lattice (comb) structure of the potential electrode. This structure is evaporated onto one side of the plate with continuous grounded conductive surface overleaf. Under the applied AC HV, a self-restricted near-surface AC streamer corona discharge ignites around each strip of the lattice. In the present paper, phenomenology and various experimental characteristics of such a discharge are described, while a theory of the processes in the device is developed. Measured in experiments are single streamer current pulses, statistical distribution of the streamer current pulses, energy dissipation and average charge deposit by corona discharge into ambient air; measuring schemes with parameters are presented. The, experimental and theoretical results have been used for qualitative explanation of a recent drag reduction experiment (Shcherbakov et al, 2000) as well as for practical recommendations to some conventional applications (ozone generation, gas treatment etc).