System and method for applying plasma sparks to tissue

A pulse delivery system, comprising:

• at least two electrodes having sharp surface features, wherein the at least two electrodes are electrically isolated from each other and the sharp features of the electrodes are separated by a distance of about 2 mm to about 20 mm;
• a pulse generator in electrical communication with said at least two electrodes for delivering pulsed voltage differences between the at least two electrodes, said pulsed voltage differences producing a voltage difference ranging from about 0.5 kV to about 100 kV for a duration of about 1 ns to about 30 μs;
• and
• a controller in electrical communication with said pulse generator, said controller comprising a processor, a measurement device in communication with said processor and configured for measuring at least one of a voltage and a current for the at least two electrodes, and a computer readable storage device comprising machine executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to:
• generate control signals for causing said pulse generator to deliver a plurality of said pulsed voltage differences between said at least two electrodes, said plurality of pulsed voltage differences comprising conditioning pulsed voltage differences and treatment pulsed voltage differences different from said conditioning pulsed voltage differences in at least one of said voltage and said duration,
• determining whether at least one of said plurality of pulsed voltage differences produced a spark between said at least two electrodes by monitoring the at least one of the voltage or the current at the measurement device and determining that a spark was produced by comparing said at least one the voltage or the current to a predetermined threshold value associated with spark formation, and
• generating additional control signals for causing the pulse generator to apply a predetermined number of additional pulsed voltage differences to said at least two electrodes after said controller detects that at least one of said plurality of pulsed voltage differences produced a spark.