INSTITUTE OF PHYSICS PUBLISHING PLASMA SOURCES SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Plasma Sources Sci. Technol. 15 (2006) 845–848 doi:10.1088/0963-0252/15/4/030

Influence of wire mesh electrodes on

dielectric barrier discharge
Xinxin Wang, Haiyun Luo, Zhuo Liang, Ting Mao and Ruili Ma
Department of Electrical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, People’s Republic of China
E-mail: wangxx@ tsinghua.edu.cn

Received 6 February 2006, in final form 10 August 2006

Published 26 September 2006
Online at stacks.iop.org/PSST/15/845

Abstract
A dielectric barrier discharge in a 2 mm air gap was studied. The experiments show that the
mesh electrode and PET film really make the discharge looking homogeneous. The breakdown
onset voltage in the case of a mesh electrode and PET film is 6.4 kV, considerably lower than
8 kV, the breakdown voltage in the usual case using two spherical electrodes. The field
calculations show that even with this much lower voltage the gap field in the region very close
to the PET film is enhanced to a value near the breakdown field in the usual case. It may be this
field enhancement that initiates a corona discharge which provides seed electrons, leading to the
breakdown of the whole air gap at a lower voltage. A lower voltage applied to the gap means a
lower averaged field over the gap. Because the development of an electron avalanche is very
sensitive to the electric field, a small decrease in the field will depress the avalanche
significantly, preventing a homogeneous discharge from transiting to filament discharge. This
may be the reason why a mesh electrode and PET film make the discharge look homogeneous.
(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

1. Introduction
Plasma surface modification has many advantages over tra-
ditional chemical methods [1] and a homogeneous discharge
at atmospheric pressure is the most desirable plasma source.
However, the difficulties in realizing a homogeneous discharge
rather than a filamentary discharge in atmospheric air have seri-
ously hindered plasma surface modification from its industrial
applications. In order to realize a homogeneous discharge,
people have tried to use many methods in which there is one
thing in common: that is, at least one electrode is covered with
a dielectric plate. This dielectric was introduced to limit dis-
charge current and the gas discharge with such a dielectric is
called a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). Except for current
limitation, other possible influences of the dielectric barrier on
gas discharge have been suggested. Okazaki found that when
two metal wire meshes are used as electrodes that are covered
by a polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plate and powered by a
50 Hz line power source, a stable homogeneous discharge in
argon, air or nitrogen is always observed, and he believed this
homogeneous discharge to be an atmospheric pressure glow
discharge (APGD) [2]. He did not give any explanation why
it makes a homogeneous discharge in air possible. Using the
same mesh electrodes as Okazaki, Fang tried to use dielectric
plates 0.1 mm in thickness and made from ceramic [3], PET
and PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) [4]. With these dielectric
plates made from different materials he got all the homoge-
neous discharges in air. It seems the mesh electrode plays
a more important role in obtaining a homogeneous discharge
than the dielectric plate. The role of the mesh was not yet fully
understood. While Buchta believed that the higher electrical
resistance of the mesh compared with the electrode may play
an important role [5], Fang proposed that the corona discharge
around the wire mesh before breakdown of the gap is impor-
tant [4]. In this paper the influence of wire mesh electrodes on
DBD in air at atmospheric pressure is studied.
2. Experimental set-up
The experimental set-up is shown in figure 1 and is similar
to that used by Fang [3]. The air gap was kept at 2 mm and
powered by a high voltage ac source of 50 Hz. For comparison
two kinds of dielectric barrier electrodes were used. The first
one was a plane electrode covered by a quartz plate (plane elec-
trode and quartz) and the second one was a wire mesh electrode
covered by a PET plate (mesh electrode and PET). The plane
electrode and quartz is a traditional dielectric barrier electrode.
The electrode is 50 mm in diameter and made from aluminium.
The quartz plate is 90 mm in diameter and 1 mm in thickness.
As for the mesh electrode and PET, all parameters are the same
as that in Fang’s experiments. The mesh electrode is 50 mm
in diameter and made from a #325 wire mesh with the wire

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X Wang et al
Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the experimental set-up.
Figure 2. Mesh electrode together with the PET film stuck on a
quartz plate.
0.03 mm in diameter. The PET plate is of a thickness of 0.1 mm
and an area of 64 mm ×64 mm. In order for the soft mesh elec-
trodes to be in good contact with the PET plate and to be well
parallel with each other, the mesh electrode together with the
PET plate was stuck on the quartz plate, as shown in figure 2.
The voltage applied to the electrodes was measured with
a voltage divider which is composed of two resistors of
75 M
(R1 ) and 59 k
(R2 ). The discharge current and its
transported charge were measured by placing a 50
resistor (r)
and a 47.5 nF capacitor (C0 ) between the bottom electrode and
ground, respectively. The waveforms of the applied voltage
and discharge current were recorded with a digital oscilloscope
TDS-3034B (300 MHz, 2.5 GS s−1 ) from Tektronix. The
Lissajous figure was obtained by plotting the applied voltage
over time on the x-axis versus the transported charge on
the Y -axis on the screen of a digital oscilloscope HP54512B
(100 MHz, 1 GS s−1 ) from Hewlett Packard.
3. Results and discussions
3.1. Discharge mode
In our experiment the voltage applied to the mesh electrode
and PET film was manually increased very slowly. When the
applied voltage Va rose to 6.6 kV (peak value), discharge began
and some noise could be heard, but the intensity of the light
emitted from the discharge gap was so weak that it could be
observed by naked eyes only in a dark room. Figure 3(a) is
the image of discharge taken with a CCD camera DSC-F707
846
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 3. DBD in a 2 mm air gap when the discharge begins.
(a) The homogeneous looking discharge, (b) the applied voltage and
discharge current and (c) the Lissajous figure of the discharge.
(0.5 s exposure time) from SONY. It can be seen on the image
that the discharge is radially homogeneous and covers the entire
surface of the electrode. Figures 3(b) and (c) are the current
trace together with the applied voltage and Lissajous figure,
respectively. As Va rose up a little bit, the discharge noise got
louder and the discharge light a little bit more intensive. Many
discharge filaments could be clearly observed in the gap and
more current pulses were recorded as shown in figure 4.
As is known, DBD is often composed of many discharge
filaments whose development occurs in some tens of nanosec-
onds; the best way to be sure that they do not develop is to take a
picture with 10 ns exposure time [6]. There is another method
of distinguishing between filamentary discharge and homoge-
neous discharge, by using two figures [2]: the Lissajous figure
of voltage-charges and the current pulse shapes. While a fila-
mentary discharge is composed of a number of current pulses
per half-voltage cycle and its Lissajous figure is drawn as a par-
allelogram, a homogeneous discharge is characterized by a sin-
gle current pulse per half-voltage cycle and its Lissajous figure
appears as only two voltage lines, the top line and the bottom
line of the parallelogram, because the traces of the two vertical
charges lines jump back and forth within so short a time of only
one current pulse that they can hardly be observed. Although
the discharge shown in figure 3(a) looks homogeneous, it is
a filamentary discharge rather than a real homogeneous dis-
charge according to the Lissajous figure shown in figure 3(c)
and the current pulse shapes shown in figure 3(b).

(a)
(b)
Figure 4. DBD in a 2 mm air gap when Va is a little bit higher than
6.6 kV. (a) The applied voltage and discharge current and
(b) filamentary discharge.
If the mesh electrode and PET film were replaced by
a plane electrode and quartz, the discharge behaviour was
different. First, a higher applied voltage, as high as 9.7 kV,
was needed to ignite the discharge. Second, more current
pulses with a little bit lower amplitude were recorded. At
the same time, more filaments in the gap were observed. In
order to figure out the role of the PET film, more experiments
were conducted in which mesh electrodes and quartz and a
plane electrode and PET film were used. The results were
very similar to that obtained with a plane electrode and quartz.
In summary, the mesh electrode and PET film really make
discharge look homogeneous if the applied voltage does not
significantly exceed the initial breakdown voltage. However,
this homogeneous looking discharge is still a filamentary
discharge. This result is different from that of Okazaki and
Fang who obtained a homogeneous discharge under the same
experimental conditions as ours. The reason for the difference
is not yet known and maybe there exists some imperfections
in our mesh electrode and PET film.
3.2. Breakdown voltage of the gas gap
In the case of a DBD, the discharge is in repetitive mode,
and the residualy charged particles and metastable atoms or
molecules from the previous discharge will influence the next
breakdown. So, we define here two breakdown voltages. The
first one is the breakdown onset voltage Vb0 for the initial
breakdown of the gas gap and the second one is the breakdown
voltage Vb for the repetitive discharge mode. In order to
determine the breakdown voltage of a gas gap, it is necessary
to know Vg , the voltage applied to this gap. Although Vg could
not be directly measured, it may be deduced.
Before the initial breakdown, Vg and Vb0 could be
determined by using the following formulae
Cd
Vg (t) = Va (t),
Cd + C g
Cd
Vb0 = Vg (t)|t=t0 = Va (t)|t=t0 ,
Cd + C g
Influence of wire mesh electrodes on dielectric barrier discharge
where t0 is the moment of the initial breakdown; Cd and Cg
are the equivalent capacitors of the dielectric and gas gap,
respectively. In our experiments, Cg equals 8.7 pF for a 2 mm
air gap; Cd is 33.6 pF for two 1 mm quartz plates (εr = 3.87)
and 328 pF for two 0.1 mm PET plates (εr = 3.77).
For a homogeneous discharge, Vg could be calculated with
the formula
Vg (t) = Va (t) − Vd (t) = Va (t) − Qd (t)/Cd , (3)
where Vd and Qd are the voltage applied to Cd and the
transported charge from the discharge, respectively. Qd could
be obtained by integration of the measured current over time [6]
or directly measured with C0 as shown in figure 1 [7]. Vb could
be easily determined by the abruptly falling point on the curve
of the obtained Vg (t). The Lissajous figure could also be used
to determine Vb if it is a homogeneous discharge because the
breakdown points are very easy to find in the figure.
It is impossible to determine a breakdown voltage Vb
for the whole gas gap in our experiments since it is a
filamentary discharge and the breakdown of the gas gap
happens localizedly, randomly and independently. In this case,
only Vb0 for the initial breakdown could be determined.
It is important to find that Vb0 for a 2 mm air gap, in the
case of a mesh electrode and PET film, is 6.4 kV, considerably
lower than that in the usual case. According to the IEC standard
of discharge gap issued in 1960 [8], the breakdown voltage of
a 2 mm air gap in between two spherical electrodes 50 mm
in diameter is 8 kV for ac, dc and negative impulse voltage.
It is also important to notice that Vb0 for a 2 mm air gap in
case of plane electrode and quartz is 7.7 kV, much higher
than that in the case of a mesh electrode and PET film and
very close to that in the usual case. We believe that it is
this lowering of Vb0 in the case of the mesh electrode and
PET film that makes the discharge more homogeneous. As
is well known [9], the development of an electron avalanche
in a uniform electric field could be quantified by exp(αd),
where α is the coefficient of electron impact ionization and d
is the gap distance. Furthermore, α increases exponentially
with the electric field. Thus, the development of an electron
avalanche is very sensitive to the electric field and a small
decrease in the field will depress the avalanche significantly,
preventing a homogeneous discharge from transiting to a
filament discharge. The lower the Vb0 , the lower the electric
field in which electron avalanches develop, and the more
homogeneous is the discharge. The experimental results from
Fang support this conclusion. When a homogeneous discharge
was obtained in Fang’s experiment using a mesh electrode and
PET film, the minimum voltage applied to a 2 mm air gap
is 6.1 kV, lower than that (6.6 kV) in our experiment when
filamentary discharge was obtained.
3.3. Electric field calculation
In order to explain why Vb0 is lowered in the case of a mesh
electrode and PET film, the electric field in a 2 mm air gap
was calculated with an applied voltage of 6.6 kV, equal to the
(1)
value corresponding to the initial breakdown. The field was
calculated using the MAXWELL 3D software from ANSOFT
by carefully considering the fine structure of the wire mesh.
(2)
The results show that the field is almost uniformly distributed
847
X Wang et al
75
plane plate electrode + 0.1 mm PET film
-------wire mesh electrode + 0.1 mm PET film
60
E ( kV/cm )
45
30
15
0 onset voltage in case of a mesh electrode and PET film is
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15
Z (mm)
Figure 5. The electric field in a 2 mm air gap.
in the central part of the air gap. Figure 5 is the field distribution
along the Z-axis, the axis of the electrodes. For comparison,
the field in the case of a plane electrode and 0.1 mm PET film
was also calculated and plotted in figure 5.
Z = 0 and Z = 0.1 mm are the electrode–PET interface
and PET–air gap interface, respectively. In contrast to the
uniform field in the case without using a mesh electrode, the
field in the case using a mesh electrode is distorted. In the air
gap (Z
0.1 mm), the field in the region very close to the PET
film is enhanced to 37.5 kV cm−1 . It is important to note that
37.5 kV cm−1 is close to 40 kV cm−1 , the breakdown field of
the 2 mm air gap in the usual case where the breakdown voltage
is 8 kV as mentioned above. It may be this field enhancement
that first initiates a corona discharge in this region and then the
corona discharge provides seed electrons for the breakdown of
the whole air gap. As we know [9], a self-sustained discharge
is formed under condition of γ [exp(αd) − 1] = 1, that is
also the breakdown condition for a homogeneous discharge
in a gap of uniform field. In usual cases, γ is coefficient of
electron emission from the cathode. In the case of a DBD,
γ is related to the processes of providing seed electrons such
as desorption of electrons from the dielectric barrier [10]. If
the corona discharge provides additional seed electrons, γ
could be qualitatively considered to have increased and the
α required for breakdown can be lowered, which means a
lowered breakdown voltage.
Although Fang and the authors all believe that the role
of the mesh electrode is to produce corona discharges, it is
different in explanation of the way the mesh plays. While
our explanation is that a corona discharge produced in the air
gap provides seed electrons, Fang’s explanation [4] is that the
corona discharge is produced around the fine wire of the mesh
electrode, and the PET film covering the mesh is charged from
its surface contacting the mesh by the corona discharge, leading
to the electrons emitting from the other surface of the PET film
into the air gap as seed electrons.
The field calculations show that a right choice of mesh
and dielectric plate is important. The dielectric plate should
not be thicker than 0.1 mm, otherwise the enhancement of gap
field in the region close to the dielectric would be too small to
influence the discharge. That is the reason why the dielectric
848
plate covering the mesh electrode used in all experiments is
0.1 mm in thickness, no matter if it is PET or ceramic. As
for the mesh, the sparser the mesh and thinner the wire of
the mesh, the higher the field enhancement. However, if the
mesh is too sparse or the wire of the mesh too thin, the electric
field in the air gap will not be radially uniform and leads to a
non-homogeneous discharge.
4. Conclusion
The mesh electrode and PET film really make discharge
in a 2 mm air gap look homogeneous. The breakdown
0.20 6.4 kV, considerably lower than 8 kV, the breakdown voltage
in the usual case using two spherical electrodes. The field
calculations show that even with this much lower voltage the
gap field in the region very close to the PET film is enhanced
to a value near the breakdown field in the usual case. It may
be this field enhancement that initiates a corona discharge
which provides seed electrons, leading to the breakdown of
the whole air gap at a lower voltage. A lower voltage applied
to the gap means a lower averaged field over the gap. Since
the development of an electron avalanche is very sensitive to
the electric field a small decrease in the field will depress the
avalanche significantly, preventing a homogeneous discharge
from transiting to filament discharge. This may be the reason
why a mesh electrode and PET film make the discharge look
homogeneous.
Acknowledgment
This work was supported by the National Natural Science
Foundation of China under contract 50537020.
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