Time decay of pulse current in capillary glow discharge

A high voltage pulse generator was development and implemented. This generator has the capacity to generate a sequence of pulses with a varying pulse height from 0 to 5 kV, and changes the pulse width in ms range. This generator has been tested and used to study the pulse glow discharge in argon by using the capillary tube under pressure 0.3 to 0.5 torr. This study has succeeded to establish the nature of discharge relaxation (plasma relaxation) when a high voltage pulse causes a breakdown in the gas (converts to conducting case).The current decays when the obtained voltage pulse is switched off. The electronic switching is a successful tool which can be used to generate high voltage pulses with flexibility that help to adjust an adjustable peak height voltage pulse, pulse duration and pulse width. The plasma returns to a neutral status when the current decay time is less than plasma relaxation time. This mean that if plasma decays time is more than relaxation time the plasma will transit from pulse glow discharge to continuous discharge. In this study the currentvoltage characteristics in relation to different gas pressures were in the abnormal glow discharge regime.