Publication details

Investigation of the initial phases of nanosecond discharges in liquid water

Investor logo
Authors

ŠIMEK Milan HOFFER Petr TUNGLI Ján PRUKNER Václav SCHMIDT Jiří BÍLEK Petr BONAVENTURA Zdeněk

Year of publication 2020
Type Article in Periodical
Magazine / Source Plasma Sources Science and Technology
MU Faculty or unit

Faculty of Science

Citation
web https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1361-6595/ab87b7
Doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1088/1361-6595/ab87b7
Keywords water; micro-discharges; opto-electrical characteristics; phases of water
Description In this work, we examine initial phases of micro-discharges produced in deionised water by high-voltage (HV) pulses of nanosecond duration. We apply opto-electrical diagnostics with extremely high temporal (down to 30 ps) as well as spatial (down to 1 mu m) resolution. Frozen interferometric and shadowgraph images show three distinct events. The first, the subcritical ( no-discharge) event, is characterised by periodic perturbations of the index of refraction which depart from the anode surface and are pulled away at the speed of sound as an expanding envelope defined by the shape of the anode tip. One-dimensional hydrodynamic modelling of the subcritical phase under conditions mimicking curvatures of real anode tips reveals basic characteristics of perturbations caused by dynamic balance between the hydrostatic and electrostrictive pressures consistent with experimental observations. The second, the dark or non-luminous discharge event, is characterised by the onset of a few isolated very tiny tree-like structures growing from the anode tip. Depending on the HV amplitude, the initial structures occur with a delay of similar to 2-3 ns after onset of the HV pulse and subsequently expand with average velocity of similar to 1 x 10(5)-2 x 10(5) m s(-1), creating very dense bush-like structures made of thin hair-like filaments in a few nanoseconds. The third, the luminous discharge event, follows (nearly simultaneously) the dark discharge event and unveils much simpler tree-like morphology determined by the extension of non-luminous bush-like structures. Characteristic dimensions of observed events range from about 1 mu m (typical diameter of non-luminous filaments) to tens of micrometres (characteristic diameters of luminous filaments). Furthermore, we address a possible role of microbubbles developing in the anode region due to the periodic HV pulses and verify that the UV-vis-NIR spectrometric signatures of the luminous phase notably change when replacing non-degassed deionised water with degassed.
Related projects:

You are running an old browser version. We recommend updating your browser to its latest version.

More info