Abstract
The electrical breakdown phenomena in mixtures of n-hexane and acetophenone have been studied using an image converter camera in conjunction with a photo optical current measuring system. It was shown that aspects of streamer development for both polarities in n-hexane are remarkably changed by a small amount additive of acetophenone. With higher additive rate of acetophenone, the negative streamer is changed to be more filamentary than that in plain n-hexane and to resemble the positive streamer in cyclohexane. The results are consistent with models of a breakdown mechanism based on a field ionization process for positive polarity and Auger-like electron emission process for negative polarity.
