Capacity-coupled multi-discharge at atmospheric pressure

Summary form only given, as follows. Large-scale dense plasmas at atmospheric pressure are of current interest in various kinds of industrial applications. We propose a new method of plasma production by capacity-coupled multi-discharge at atmospheric pressure, which would be useful for many kinds of the applications. In the case of an atmospheric pressure discharge, the impedance of discharge gap after the breakdown is extremely small compared with that before the breakdown, and hence the excess discharge current has to be quickly quenched in the proper way. In the conventional silent discharge (or dielectric barrier discharge), the current is quenched by dielectrics covering the electrode. In our method, a device consists of a common electrode and a number of electrodes coupled directly with a small capacitor (capacitance C) for quenching the discharge.