Effects of a negative corona discharge on subsequent positive streamers

Abstract Positive streamers can be affected significantly by preceding discharges such as earlier streamers or a corona discharge. In this paper, we primarily discuss the effect of such a corona discharge on subsequent positive streamers with different intervals between them (0/500/990 ms) in air and pure nitrogen at 80 mbar with a repetition frequency of 1 Hz. We found that in air, when the interval time is 500 or 990 ms, a preceding discharge leads to shorter and weaker streamers or even prevents streamer inception altogether. This is likely due to negative ions which have converted to species that are harder to detach. The weaker streamers are also caused by more stable inception clouds which branch out later. When a corona discharge immediately precedes a streamer discharge in air, the streamers become longer, brighter while some branches develop from the side of the electrode instead of its tip. These effects are likely all related to plasma shielding caused by the corona discharge. In nitrogen, inception is primarily caused by electrons instead of negative ions. When the interval time is 500 or 990 ms in this gas, there is nearly no difference between streamers with and without a preceding corona discharge, because the inception time in nitrogen is the formative time that is not sensitive to the initial electron density. For near-zero intervals between corona and streamer discharges in nitrogen, streamers become smoother and thicker which can be attributed to a higher background ionization left by the corona discharge.