Residual charge distribution of positive surface streamer

The measuring system of charges accumulated on an insulating plate is developed with an electrostatic probe whose sensing electrode is of 0.5 mm diameter. In the inverse calculation from the probe outputs to the charge distribution, Tikhonov's regularization technique is effectively used to suppress the excessive amplification of the noise. In the case of measuring a 2 mm thick PMMA plate, the spatial resolution of the measuring system reaches 1.0 mm. With this system, the residual surface charge distribution on an insulating plate just after the occurrence of a positive surface discharge at 25 kPa (190 Torr) air is measured. On the head of a positive surface streamer, there remains 10−11 C surface charge, which satisfies the criterion of an electron avalanche-to-streamer transformation. The charge density across a streamer takes a minimum on its centre and a maximum on its sheath. This fact suggests that a quasineutral channel exists in the centre of a streamer, and positive ions remain on the sheath of it.