STREAMER’s THEORY

N K KISHORE
• Townsend mechanism when applied to
breakdown at atmospheric pressure was found to
have certain drawbacks.
• Current growth occurs as a result of ionization
processes, only.
• The theory predicts time lags of the order of 10-5
s, while in actual practice breakdown is observed
to occur at very short times of the order of 10-8 s.
• Townsend mechanism predicts a very diffused
form of discharge, in actual practice, discharges
are found to be filamentary and irregular.
• Growth of charge carriers in an avalanche in a
uniform field, described by eαd is valid only as
long as the influence of the space charge due to
ions is very small compared to the applied field.
• Reather & Meek observed that when charge
concentration was between 106 and 108, the
growth of the avalanche became weak.
• When the charge concentration was higher than
108, the avalanche current was followed by a
steep rise in the current between the electrodes
leading to the breakdown of the gap.
• Both the slow growth at low charge concentrations
and fast growth at high charge concentrations have
been attributed to the modification of the originally
applied uniform field (E) by the space charge P.
Figure below shows the electric field around the
avalanche as it progresses along the gap and the
resulting modification to the applied field.
• If the space charge at the head of the avalanche is
assumed to have a spherical volume containing
negative charge at its top because of the higher
electron mobility, then the field gets enhanced at the
top of the avalanche with field lines from the anodes
terminating on its head. At the bottom of the
avalanche, the field between electrons and ions
reduces the applied field (E). Still further down the
field between cathode and the positive ions gets
enhanced. Thus, the field distortion occurs and it
becomes noticeable with a charge carrier number n <
106. However, if a charge density in the avalanche
approaches n = 108 the space charge filled field and the
applied field will have the same magnitude and this
leads to the initiation of a streamer.
•
• Thus, the space charge fields play an important
role in the growth of avalanches in corona and
spark discharges in non-uniform field gaps.
• It has been shown that transformation from an
avalanche to a streamer generally occurs when
the. charge within the avalanche head reaches A
critical value of
no e(αxe) = 108 or αxc lies between 18 and
20, where xc is the length of the avalanche in
which the secondary electrons are produced by
photo-ionization of gas molecules in the inter-
electrode gap.
• In the theories proposed by Raether and Meek it has
been shown that when the avalanche in the gap
reaches a critical size, the combined applied field and
the space charge field cause intense ionization and
excitation of the gas particles in front of the avalanche.
• Instantaneous recombination between positive ions
and electrons releases photons which in turn produce
secondary electrons by photo-ionization.
• These secondary electrons under the influence of the
field in the gap develop into secondary avalanches as
shown in Figure in next slide. Since photons travel with
the velocity of light, the photo-ionization process gives
rise to rapid development of conduction channels
across the gap.
• Formation of secondary avalanches due to
photo-ionization
• On the basis of experimental observations
Raether proposed an empirical expression for the
streamer spark criterion of the form
αxc = 17.7 + In xc + In (Er/E)
Where Er is the space charged field directed
radially at the head of the avalanche and E is the
applied field.
• The conditions for the transition from the
avalanche to streamer assumes that the space
charged field, E, approaches the externally
applied field (E = Er) and hence the breakdown
criterion (Eq. (14)) becomes αxc = 17.7+ln xc
• The minimum breakdown value for a uniform field gap by
streamer mechanism is then obtained on the assumption
that the transition from an avalanche to a streamer occurs
when the avalanche has just crossed a gap, d. Thus, a
minimum breakdown voltage by streamer mechanism
occurs only when a critical length xc = d.
• Meek proposed a simple quantitative criterion to estimate
the electric field that transforms an avalanche into a
streamer. The field Er produced by the space charge, at the
radius r, is given by
Er = 5.27 * 10-7(α e(αxe))/(X/P)1/2 V/cm
Where α is Townsend's first ionization coefficient, p is the
gas pressure in ton, and x is the distance to which the
streamer has extended in the gap. According to Meek, the
minimum breakdown voltage is obtained when Er = E and x
= d in the above equation.
• The equation simplifies to
α d+ln(α/P)= 14.5+ln(E/P)+1/2 ln(d/p)
This equation is solved between α/P and E/P at
which a given p and d satisfy the equation. The
breakdown voltage is given by the corresponding
product of E and d.
• The above simple criterion enabled an agreement
between the calculated and the measured
breakdown voltages. This theory also neatly fits in
with the observed filamentary, crooked channels
and the branching of the spark channels, and
cleared up many ambiguities of the Townsend
mechanism when applied to breakdown in a high
pressure gas across a long gap.
• It is still controversial as to which mechanism
operates in uniform field conditions over a
given range of pd values. It is generally
assumed that for pd values below 1000 torr-
cm and gas pressures varying from 0.01 to 300
torr, the Townsend mechanism operates,
while at higher pressures and pd values the
Streamer mechanism plays the dominant role
in explaining the breakdown phenomena.
Space Charge Effects