Influence of the Emission of Charged Particles on the Characteristics of Glow Discharges with Oscillating Electrons

Abstract

The influence of the extraction of charged particles on the conditions of sustaining and the characteristics of a glow discharge with oscillating electrons is considered. It is shown that there is some pressure-dependent optimum level for the extraction of ions at which the energy efficiency of the ion source reaches a maximum. Experimentally, it has been established that the sustaining of a discharge is adversely affected by the run-off of fast ionizing electrons from the discharge, whereas the emission of slow plasma electrons can facilitate the sustaining of the high-current variety of discharge and even lead to a stabilization of an unstable gas-discharge structure. It has been shown that due to the different character of the spatial distributions of fast and slow particles in discharges with electrons oscillating in a magnetic field it is possible to realize highly efficient electron emission without loss of discharge stability by extracting electrons from the near-anode region.