Structure formation in a DC-driven "barrier" discharge: stability analysis and numerical solutions

A DC-driven "barrier" discharge is a gas discharge layer and a high-Ohmic semiconductor layer sandwiched between planar electrodes to which a DC voltage is applied. The sys- tem resembles a dielectric barrier discharge, but is even simpler, as the external boundary conditions allow for a completely homogeneous and stationary state. Whole phase transi- tion diagrams to purely oscillating states or to states with spatio-temporal structures were determined in experiments that actually explored the regime between Townsend and glow discharge. We discuss the experimental conditions and our present theoretical understand- ing, that is based on stability analysis and numerical solutions of a °uid model for the gas discharge with space charge e®ects and a linear model for the semiconductor