Two-dimensional, hybrid model of glow discharge in hollow cathode geometries

Conference · Sun Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1995

OSTI ID:213027

Fiala, A; Pitchford, L C; Boeuf, J P ^[1]

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1. Universite Paul Sabatier, Toulouse (France)

Low pressure glow discharges in plane-plane geometries have been studied extensively over the years and most of their features are known from experiments and numerical simulation. If a plane cathode is replaced by a cathode with some hollow structure, then, for a certain range of conditions, the negative glows of opposite (adjacent) cathode walls overlap and the discharge behaviour dramatically changes. The voltage is lower at a constant current and the current is even several orders of magnitude higher for a given voltage than for the plane cathode. At the same time, the intensity of the light emission from the discharge considerably increases. This effect is called the hollow cathode effect. There are several physical phenomena which could be responsible for the big efficiency of the hollow cathode discharges. The recent investigations based on the Monte Carlo simulation of the electron kinetics have shown that the trapping of energetic electrons in the hollow cathode cavity can explain the order of magnitude of the hollow cathode effect. The configuration of the discharge tube presented in fig. 1 is used here to study the behaviour of glow discharges in a hollow cathode means of numerical simulation.

• OSTI ID: 213027
• Report Number(s): CONF-950749--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING
66 PHYSICS
ENERGY SPECTRA
GLOW DISCHARGES
HOLLOW CATHODES
MONTE CARLO METHOD
PLASMA FLUID EQUATIONS
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS