Particle-in-Cell Model of a Laser-Triggered Spark Gap
A particle-in-cell simulation of the streamer formation process in a laser-triggered spark gap has been developed to estimate streamer radius and conductivity under a variety of conditions. The motivation for developing the model was to understand the initial conditions of the switching arc in a las...
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Published in | IEEE transactions on plasma science Vol. 34; no. 5; pp. 1640 - 1645 |
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Main Authors | , |
Format | Journal Article Conference Proceeding |
Language | English |
Published |
New York, NY
IEEE
01.10.2006
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE) |
Subjects | |
Online Access | Get full text |
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Summary: | A particle-in-cell simulation of the streamer formation process in a laser-triggered spark gap has been developed to estimate streamer radius and conductivity under a variety of conditions. The motivation for developing the model was to understand the initial conditions of the switching arc in a laser-triggered spark gap, with the goal of accelerating the resistive decay of the arc. In a parallel plate switch configuration with dimensions of 0.6 mm times 0.3 mm, the electric field was varied from 2 to 5 MV/m, the gas pressure was varied from 1 to 1.5 atm, and the gas type was varied between Ar and Ne. The laser triggering parameters, including the laser ionization rate (from 5 to 20middot10 18 s -1 ), laser spot area (from 1200 to 4800 mum 2 ), and laser spot orientation relative to the electric field, were also varied. The electric field had a large influence on radius, increasing it by 19% with increasing field, and on conductivity, resulting in a 285% increase with increasing field. Among the laser triggering parameters, a linear focal spot-oriented transverse relative to the electric field direction was observed to produce a very large increase in streamer radius |
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Bibliography: | ObjectType-Article-1 SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1 ObjectType-Feature-2 content type line 23 |
ISSN: | 0093-3813 1939-9375 |
DOI: | 10.1109/TPS.2006.881887 |