STREAMER DISCHARGE AND LEADER DISCHARGE

Student: Ha Quang Huy

Student code: 20181174

Instructor: Associate professor PhD. Tran Van Top

I. Stremer discharge

1. Preamble

Streamers are fast-moving ionization fronts that can form complex tree-like
structures or other shapes, depending on conditions (e.g. figure 1)

Figure 1. Image of a peculiar streamer discharge caused by a complex voltage

pulse

2. Streamer phenomena in nature and technology

The most common and well-known occurrence of streamers is as the precursor of

sparks where they create the first ionized path for the later heat-dominated spark
discharge. Streamers play a similar role in the inception and in the propagation of
lightning leaders. Streamers are directly visible in our atmosphere as so-called
sprites, discharges far above active thunderstorms.
Streamers are members of the cold atmospheric plasma (CAP) discharge family.
Most industrial applications of streamers and other CAPs (not as precursors of
discharges like sparks) utilize the unique chemical properties of such discharges.
The highly non-equilibrium character and the resulting high electron energies
enable CAPs to start high-temperature chemical reactions close to room
temperature. This leads to two major advantages compared to thermal plasmas and
other hot reactors: firstly it enables such reactions in environments that cannot
withstand high temperatures, and secondly it can make the chemistry very efficient
as no energy is lost on gas heating.

A fast pulsed discharge like a streamer has the advantage that the electric field is
not limited by the breakdown field. The electric field and the electron energy can
transientltly reach much higher values than in static discharges. Pulsed discharges
can be seen as energy conversion processes, as demonstrated in figure 2. First,
pulsed electric power is applied to gas around atmospheric pressure. When the gas
discharge starts to develop, this energy is converted to ionization and to free
electrons with energies in the eV range, far from thermal equilibrium. The further
plasma evolution can include different physical and chemical mechanisms. Electric
breakdown means that the conductivity increases further by ionization, heating and
thermal gas expansion; it is used in high voltage switchgear, and has to be
controlled in lightning protection. Excitation, ionization and dissociation of
molecules by electron impact trigger plasmachemical reactions in the gas. The drift
of unbalanced charged particles through the gas can create so-called corona wind.
If the local electric field is high enough, electrons can keep accelerating up to
electron runaway, and create Bremsstrahlung photons in collisions with gas
molecules; the photons can initiate other high-energy processes in the gas, as is in
particular seen in thunderstorms.
 Figure 2. Energy conversion in pulsed atmospheric discharges with application
fields.

II. Leader discharge

1. Preamble

A leader is a hot, highly conductive channel of plasma that plays a critical part
during dielectric breakdown within a long electric spark.

2. Mechanism

When a gas is subjected to high voltage stress, the electric field is often quite non-
uniform near one, or both, of the high voltage electrodes making up a spark gap.
Breakdown initially begins with the formation of corona discharges near the
electrode with the highest electrical stress. If the electrical field is further
increased, longer length cold discharges (called streamers or burst corona)
sporadically form near the stressed electrode. Streamers attract multiple electron
avalanches into a single channel, propagating forward quickly via photon emission
which leads to photoelectrons producing new avalanches. Streamers redistribute
charge within the surrounding gas, temporarily forming regions of excess charge
(space charges) in the regions surrounding the discharges.

If the electrical field is sufficiently high, the individual currents from multitudes of
streamers combine to create a hot, highly conductive path that projects from the
electrode, going some distance into the gap. The projecting channel of hot plasma
is called a leader, and it can have an electrical conductivity approaching that of an
electric arc. The leader effectively projects the electrical field from the nearby
electrode further into the gap, similar to introducing a short length of wire into the
gap. The tip of the conductive leader now forms a new region from which
streamers can entend even further into the gap. As new streamer discharges feed
the tip of the leader, the streamer currents help to keep the leader hot and
conductive. Under sufficiently high voltages, the leader will continue to extend
itself further into the gap, doing so in a series of jumps until the entire gap has been
bridged. Although leaders are most often associated with the initial formative
stages of a lightning stroke, they are characteristic of the development of all long
sparks. In the case of a lightning leader, each extension (called a step leader) is
typically 10 – 50 meters in length.
Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leader_(spark)

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6595/abaa05