Streamer Theory of Breakdown in Gases According to the Townsend theory firstly, current growth occurs as a result of the ionization process only. But in practice, breakdown voltages were found to depend on the gas pressure and the geometry of the gap. Second chances time lags of the order of 10-5 s, but practically it was observed to occur at a very short time of 10-8 s. Also, the Townsend mechanism predicts a very diffused form of discharge, that actually discharges were found to be filamentary and irregular. Townsend's mechanism failed to explain all these observed phenomena and as a result, The Streamer theory was proposed. The theory predicts the development of a spark discharge directly from a single avalanche in which the space charge developed by the avalanche itself is said to transform the avalanche into a plasma steamer. In Fig 1.7, a single electron starting at the cathode by ionization builds up an avalanche that crosses the gap. The electrons in the a