Nanosecond Pulsed Arrays of Microdischarges in Argon

The spatiotemporal behavior of the optical emission of an array of 25 microdischarges has been studied through fast imaging technique. The device basically consists of a metal/dielectric/metal sandwich powered by nanosecond high-voltage pulses. It is shown that all the microdischarges ignite simultaneously within an accuracy of 5 ns and that the parallel operation of all the microdischarges occurs without any ballast resistors.