Instability of the Trichel Pulse Mode in a Corona Discharge

This work is devoted to the study of a negative corona discharge in air at atmospheric pressure. To ignite it, the edge (cathode) –plane (anode) system has been used with interelectrode gap of 10–20 mm long and edge curvature radius of ≈20 μm. For the first time, it has been established that in a certain voltage range, the Trichel pulse mode after ignition becomes unstable and is periodically replaced by the glow discharge mode with a current ≲ 1 μA. It is shown that at the stage preceding the first Trichel pulse, the discharge current is not recorded within measurement error of ±0.2 nA.