A New Type of Dielectric Barrier Discharge Using Double Helical External Electrodes

Xenon dielectric barrier discharges are expected to be useful as environmentally friendly light sources instead of that containing mercury. The authors have demonstrated new type of dielectric barrier discharge using double helical external electrodes (DHEL) method with xenon. The filling gas pressure ratio of Xe:Ne was 7:3, total pressure was 1.33 kPa and external electrode pitch was 10 mm. This DHEL was operated by sinusoidal waveform voltage, which is preferable to pulsed operation for preventing EMI, with enough phosphor luminance, i.e. 10 000 cd/m². As a result of the observation of temporal behavior of the discharge by an ICCD camera, two discharges were observed in a half cycle of the sinusoidal input voltage. Moreover, it is found that the emission from the first discharge is intense on the electrode wire, whereas the intense emission position separates and repulsively moves to both sides of the electrode wire. This is explained from the repulsive force between the wall charge and the electrode polarity