Investigation of Planar Barrier Discharges for Coherent Nonlinear Structures

Nonlinear pattern formations are ubiquitous in nature. One of the analogous configurations in laboratory experiments to such nonlinear systems is the current filament formations observed in glow plasmas. These filaments can generate oscillatory fluctuations in glow, which are also observed in voltage and current measurements. Specifically, semiconductor-gas discharges are known to breed these types of current filaments naturally. The plasma discharge is initiated by applying a DC high voltage to electrodes while they are immersed in nitrogen gas at partial atmospheric pressure. Observed discharge behaves oscillatory in time. Harmonic frequency generation and coherency levels among these modes are investigated. Parametric scans are performed to study the transition to chaotic behavior. Observed results are discussed in detail