A research team has successfully achieved, for the first time worldwide, the simultaneous and direct measurement of electron density and electric field—two quantities that fundamentally govern the dynamics of streamer discharges—by integrating multiple laser diagnostic techniques with high temporal resolution. A reproducible single-filament discharge was employed to obtain two-dimensional electron density maps and one-dimensional electric-field profiles, and their mutual consistency was experimentally demonstrated.
Furthermore, the combined measurements revealed charge and field structures that had not been predicted by existing theoretical or numerical models. These findings provide a new experimental benchmark that enables the validation, refinement, and further sophistication of conventional streamer-discharge models.
This research was conducted collaboratively by Associate Professor Yuki Inada, Associate Professor Tatsutoshi Shioda, Project Associate Professor Ryosuke Nakamura, and Professor Emeritus Mitsuaki Maeyama of Saitama University; Professor Ryo Ono of Graduate School of Frontier Sciences at the University of Tokyo; and Professor Akiko Kumada of Graduate School of Engineering at the University of Tokyo.
Figure: Simultaneous measurements of the electron density (top) and electric field (bottom) that govern streamer-discharge dynamics.
Papers
Journal: Physical Review Letters
Title: Direct combinational measurements of the electron density and electric field in secondary streamer discharge under atmospheric-pressure air
Authors: Yuki Inada, Tatsutoshi Shioda, Ryosuke Nakamura, Akiko Kumada, Mitsuaki Maeyama, and Ryo Ono
DOI: 10.1103/5sv6-28qp
Discovery of Self-Organized Superlayer Cocrystal Formation for Symmetric and Unsymmetric Organic Semiconductor Molecules
Multipole polaron in the devil’s staircase of CeSb
