Sheath in Front of a Negatively Biased Collector that Emits Electrons and is Immersed in a Two Electron Temperature Plasma

An extension of a recently published [Gyergyek T., ?er?ek M. Contrib. Plasma Phys., 45 , (2005), 89] one dimensional fluid model of the sheath formation in front of a floating electrode (collector) that emits secondary electrons and is immersed in a two‐electron temperature nonmagnetized, collisionless plasma is presented. The electron velocity distribution function is assumed to be a two‐temperature maxwellian, while the singly charged positive ions and the emitted electrons are assumed to be monoenergetic. It is assumed that the electrons in the pre‐sheath potential drop obey the Boltzmann relation, so that a larger fraction of the hot than of the cool electrons can penetrate to the sheath edge. Our model predicts that the collector can in some cases have 3 and in some cases, when the emission of electrons from the collector is critical, even 5 different floating potentials at the same hot to cool electron temperature and density ratios very far away from the collector. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Effects of Energetic Electrons on Collector and Source Potentials in a Finite Ion Temperature Plasma

Formation of the potential in a two-electron-temperature plasma region facing a floating collector was studied theoretically with a kinetic plasma-sheath model and by electrostatic particle simulation. The electrons were described by truncated full Maxwellian velocity distribution functions and the ions by an accelerated half-Maxwellian velocity distribution function. The collector potential and the plasma source sheath or presheath potential drop were evaluated as functions of the hot to cool electron temperature ratio and the hot electron density ratio using Vlasov and Poison equations. The results showed that the presheath potential drop varied continuously with electron composition ratio for lower values of the electron temperature ratio, while for higher values in a narrow composition ratio range, triple values of the potential were found. Of the two physically acceptable values, the lower was characterized by the cool electrons and the higher by the hot electrons. It is anticipated that a current-free double layer structure is formed in the plasma system between these two potential regions. The collector floating potential, as a function of electron composition ratio, is mainly dominated by the hot electrons, since already a small value of hot electron current is sufficient to compensate the ion saturation current. In order to complete the theoretical investigation we also study the hydrogen plasma system with the XPDP1 particule-in-cell simulation code composed at Berkeley. At certain plasma parameter values formation of a double layer structure was observed. The potential Values on the upper and lower side of the double layer, as well as that of the collector floating potential, corresponded very well to the calculated values. On the upper side the plasma was composed of ions, accelerated through the source sheath potential drop, and electrons consisting of cool full Maxwellian and hot truncated full Maxwellian populations. On the lower side only hot electrons and ions additionally accelerated through the double layer were found.     

A fluid model of the current-voltage characteristics of an electron emitting electrode immersed in a two electron temperature plasma

The current voltage characteristics of a negatively biased electron emitting electrode immersed in a two-electron temperature plasma are analyzed by a simple one dimensional fluid model. Based on the assumption that the electron density in the pre-sheath region obeys the Boltzmann law the Bohm criterion is derived in the form of a transcendental equation for the Mach number, which can have up to 3 solutions. According to these solutions the ion velocity at the sheath edge can be determined either by the hot or by the cool electron temperature. When it is determined by the cool electron temperature and the hot electron temperature is high enough the critical electron emission current from the collector can have a very pronounced local maximum and a minimum when regarded as a function of the electrode potential. Because of that the current voltage characteristics of the electrode may exhibit up to 3 different floating potentials. This result is in good agreement with the experimental observations reported in [J. Appl. Phys. 63, 5674 (1988)].     

Floating Potential of an Electron Emitting Collector that Terminates a Bounded Plasma System

Potential formation in one‐dimensional bounded plasma system terminated by a floating, electron emitting collector is studied by a fully kinetic one‐dimensional model and particle‐in‐cell (PIC) computer simulation. As the electron emission from the collector is gradually increased, the floating potential of the collector and the electric field at the collector both increase quite strongly. When the critical emission is reached, the electric field becomes zero. If the emission is increased further, the electric field changes sign and becomes positive and a virtual cathode is formed in front of the collector. The floating potential of the collector also increases, but much more slowly, than below the critical emission level. If the ratio between the temperatures of the emitted and of the bulk electrons is high enough, the floating potential of the collector may even exceed the zero potential of the source, but in this case the simulation becomes unstable, when the positive ions start to flow back from the collector towards the source. Simulation results obtained below the critical emission level are in very good agreement with the model, provided that the particle densities obtained from the simulation are normalized correctly. In this case the potential and electric field profiles found from the PIC simulation match almost perfectly to the profiles obtained from the numerical solution of the Poisson equation (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Electron energy distributions in a metal-polymer-vacuum system

The energy distributions of electrons emitted from a metal coated with a polymer (polydiphenylene phthalide) is studied experimentally using field electron spectroscopy. A considerable decrease in the electron work function for the metal-polymer-vacuum system as compared to pure metal is observed. Analysis of the energy distributions of emitted electrons shows that the distribution in the case with the polymer is broader and displaced towards low energies, and its high-energy edge is slightly extended. The effect of emission voltage on the shape of the energy distribution of emitted electrons is studied. A model is proposed to explain the substantial decrease in the effective electron work function in the case when the metal electrode is coated with a polymer film.     

Potential formation in a bounded two-electron temperature plasma system with floating collector that emits electrons

Formation of the plasma potential in a plasma that contains energetic electrons and is bounded by a floating collector that emits electrons is studied theoretically. The problem is treated by a static. kinetic plasma-sheath model of Schwager and Birdsall [Phys. Fluids B2 (1990) 1057], which we have extended in order to include additional energetic electron population. The distribution of these electrons is assumed to be a high-temperature Maxwellian. They are called hot electrons. In the paper we study effects of the density and temperature of the hot electrons on the formation of the plasma potential. The model shows that for certain densities and temperatures of the hot electron population plasmas with two different plasma potentials can coexist in the system. These two plasmas are separated spatially by a double layer. For the case when there is no emission of electrons from the collector, results of the model are compared with computer simulation and very good agreement between the model and the simulation is found. The simulation also confirms existence of two plasmas with two different potentials separated by a double layer.     

低能He~(2+)与He原子碰撞转移电离出射电子能谱研究

利用反应显微成像谱仪对70和100keV He2+与He原子碰撞转移电离(TI)过程中不同出射角度的电子能谱进行了测量,观测到出射电子能谱具有如下分布特征:出射电子速度分布介于0和入射离子速度vp之间;在不同出射角度电子能谱分布均有一极大值存在,随着出射角度的增大,能谱分布极大值逐渐减小;当电子出射角度等于45°时,多数电子集中在0eV附近。上述特征可由低能离子-原子碰撞"准分子"模型进行定性解释。在100keV He2+-He转移电离出射电子能谱中有靶电子被俘获至散射离子连续态(electron capture to continuum,简称ECC)电子的贡献,这可看做是动力学两步过程的作用。     

甚高频激发容性耦合氩等离子体的电子能量分布函数的演变

甚高频激发的容性耦合等离子体由于离子通量和能量的相对独立可控而受到人们的关注. 本文采用朗缪尔探针诊断技术测量了40.68 MHz激发的容性耦合Ar等离子体的特性(如电子能量概率分布、电子温度和密度等)随宏观参量的演变情况. 实验结果表明, 电子能量概率分布随着气压的增加从双麦克斯韦分布逐步转变为单麦克斯韦分布并最终演变为Druyvesteyn分布, 而射频激发功率的增加促进了低能电子布居数的增强; 在从等离子体放电中心移向边界的过程中, 低能电子的布居数显著下降, 而高能电子的布居则有所上升; 放电极板间距的变化直接导致了等离子体中电子加热模式的转变. 另外, 我们也对等离子体中的高低能电子密度和温度的分配情况进行了讨论.     

Dust in Plasma II. Effects of Secondary Electrons: Ionization and Surface Emission

In this second paper, the effect of secondary electrons on the charge and potential of a dust particle immersed in plasma has been studied. The processes of electron‐induced ionization and those of photo‐electron and secondary electron emission from the particle surface as a function of primary electron temperature have been taken into account. Starting from temperatures as low as 6 eV in an Ar plasma, ionization produces an extra ion flux to the dust surface comparable to that of the ion charge exchange effect. For what concerns the surface emission, results show that a transition from negative to positive dust charge/potential takes place, and that the transition regime is characterized by a non‐monotonic behavior of the electric potential around the particle. In the case of photoelectric emission, the dust charge and potential are monotonic decreasing functions of the electron temperature, while in the case of emission induced by primary electrons a minimum charge/potential is reached before they grow towards positive values. In no case multiple dust charge states have been observed due to the presence of the potential well attached to the particle surface. (© 2014 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Field-induced functions of porous Si as a confined system

Electroluminescent porous Si (PS) diodes exhibit various useful functions under a high-electric field. The experimental PS diodes are composed of thin semitransparent metal films, PS layers (about 500 nm thick in minimum), p- or n-type Si substrates and ohmic back contacts. Definite nonlinear electrical behavior (negative resistance and nonvolatile bistable memory effects) and cold electron emission phenomena appear in these PS diodes associated with the EL emission. Both the negative resistance and memory effects are related to the charging of Si nanocrystallites by field-induced carrier injection. The electron emission observed in the PS diodes formed on n+–Si substrates is caused by hot electrons tunnelling through the top contact. By an appropriate structural control of PS, the effective drift length under a high-field conduction is significantly increased, and then electrons are emitted ballistically. These functions reflect the activity of PS as a nanocrystalline confined system.     

直流激励的大气压氩气喷枪的光谱研究

利用正高压驱动空心针-板喷枪装置,通入工作气体氩气,在大气压空气中产生了均匀稳定的喇叭状等离子体羽。电学和光学测量结果表明,放电虽然是在直流电源驱动下工作,但放电为周期性的脉冲。通过对等离子体羽发光信号进行空间分辨测量,研究了脉冲的形成机理,发现除针尖附近的电晕放电外,等离子体羽是以正流光(等离子体子弹)从针尖向着接地电极方向传播的。采用光谱学方法,对电子激发温度随电压的变化及其空间分布进行了测量。结果表明,电子激发温度(约为3 eV)随电压的增大而升高,在一定电压下,电子激发温度沿气流方向也在升高。     

Effect of Electron Velocity Distribution on the Heating of Core by Corona in a Spherical Pellet

When a spherical plasma pellet is irradiated symmetrically from all sides by high power laser beams, hot electrons are produced at the plasma resonance layer. They move in the inward radial direction causing a counter-streaming cold electron current flowing outwardly to maintain the charge neutrality. In general, the interaction between the hot electrons and the counter-streaming cold background electrons leads to broadening of the velocity distribution of the latter. For a given heat flux, the electron velocity distribution constrained by the requirements for not supporting beam plasma instabilities, predicts a minimum electron velocity in the plasma ablation zone. These considerations affect the efficiency of heat transfer from the hot corona to the cold core. The purpose of this paper is to study the dependence of core-corona coupling on the electron velocity distribution, laser wavelength and other plasma parameters in detail.     

Potential Formation in a Bounded Plasma System which is Terminated by an Electron Emitting Floating Collector Studied by a Particle‐in‐Cell Computer Simulation

Potential formation in one‐dimensional bounded plasma system terminated by a floating, electron emitting collector is studied by particle‐in‐cell (PIC) computer simulation. Attention is focused to the case of rather strong space charge limited emission. Formation of a potential well (virtual cathode) in front of the collector is observed. As emission increases the floating potential of the electrode and the potential of the bottom of the potential well both increase. The floating potential increases faster than the virtual cathode potential and consequently the depth of the potential well in front of the collector increases also. As long as the emission is not to large (up to approximately 40 times the critical emission) the relation between the depth of the potential well and the normalized emission follows a simple logarithmic formula. For larger emissions the depth of the potential well is larger than predicted by the model. It seems that at very large emission the floating potential of the collector might even exceed the zero reference potential of the source electrode. Such phenomenon has been reported by [A. Marek et al. Contrib. Plasma Phys., 48 , 491 (2008)], where it was observed that the floating potential of a strongly emissive probe exceeded the plasma potential determined from the knee of the current‐voltage characteristics when the same probe was used as a Langmuir probe. But before this actually happens the simulation breaks down. When positive ions start to be repelled by the positive collector back towards the source the system becomes unstable so that a steady state can not be reached and no results can be read from the output of the simulations. That electron emission may destabilize the sheath in front of it, was found also in Hall thrusters, see e.g. [Daren Yu et al. Phys. Plasmas, 15 , 104501, 2008] and [F. Taccogna et al Appl. Phys. Lett., 94 , 251502, 2009]. (© 2013 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Electron drift velocity and mobility in graphene

We present a theoretical study of the electric transport properties of graphene-substrate systems. The drift velocity, mobility, and temperature of the electrons are self-consistently determined using the Boltzmann equilibrium equations. It is revealed that the electronic transport exhibits a distinctly nonlinear behavior. A very high mobility is achieved with the increase of the electric fields increase. The electron velocity is not completely saturated with the increase of the electric field. The temperature of the hot electrons depends quasi-linearly on the electric field. In addition, we show that the electron velocity, mobility, and electron temperature are sensitive to the electron density. These findings could be employed for the application of graphene for high-field nano-electronic devices.     

300% magnetocurrent in a room temperature operating spin-valve transistor

Here we present the realization of a room temperature operating spin-valve transistor with huge magnetocurrent (MC=300%) at low fields. This spin-valve transistor employs hot-electron transport across a Ni₈₁Fe₁₉/Au/Co spin valve. Hot electrons are injected into the spin valve across a Si–Pt Schottky barrier. After traversing the spin valve, these hot electrons are collected using a second Schottky barrier (Si–Au), which provides energy and momentum selection. The collector current is found to be extremely sensitive to the spin-dependent scattering of hot electrons in the spin valve, and therefore on the applied magnetic field. We also illustrate the role of the collector diode characteristics in determining the magnetocurrent under collector bias.     

Investigation of fast pitch angle scattering of runaway electrons in the EAST tokamak

This paper reports that an experimental investigation of fast pitch angle scattering(FPAS) of runaway electrons in the EAST tokamak has been performed.From the newly developed infrared detector(HgCdTe) diagnostic system,the infrared synchrotron radiation emitted by relativistic electrons can be obtained as a function of time.The FPAS is analysed by means of the infrared detector diagnostic system and the other correlative diagnostic systems(including electron-cyclotron emission,hard x-ray,neutrons).It is found that the intensity of infrared synchrotron radiation and the electron-cyclotron emission signal increase rapidly at the time of FPAS because of the fast increase of pitch angle and the perpendicular velocity of the energetic runaway electrons.The Parail and Pogutse instability is a possible mechanism for the FPAS.     

Electron Spectrum of Nonlinear Cold Emission from a Metal under the Action of a Laser Shot

The nonlinear emission of electrons from a metal under the action of a femtosecond moderate-intensity laser pulse (laser shot) has been studied. A theoretical model of the process has been constructed based on the 1D nonstationary Schrödinger equation in the vacuum half-space with given boundary conditions for the electron wavefunction. This equation has been solved using the Laplace transformation. It has been assumed that the states of free electrons in a metal, which are described by the Sommerfeld theory of metals, are insignificantly influenced by the laser field. The energy spectrum of emitted electrons has been obtained, and its dependence on the parameters of the lased shot has been found. The calculated spectrum of nonlinear electron emission from a tungsten nanotip under the action of a 6.5-fs-long laser shot generating a field of 9.26 V/nm agrees with the experimental data.     

超短脉冲激光与乙醇微滴相互作用中超热电子的双叶状角分布

测量了聚焦光强为1016W/cm2的超短脉冲激光与乙醇微滴相互作用中产生的能量大于50?keV的超热电子的角分布和电子能谱.观察到的超热电子角分布明显依赖于激光的偏振特性，在与激光偏振平面平行的平面上超热电子相对于激光入射方向呈对称的双叶状分布.超热电子的能谱显示超热电子的最大能量大于750?keV.以上超热电子的角分布可用一个基于共振吸收机制的模型加以解释. 关键词： 超短脉冲激光 超热电子 微滴 共振吸收     

Enhanced Photoelectric and Photothermal Responses on Silicon Platform by Plasmonic Absorber and Omni‐Schottky Junction

Recent progresses in plasmon‐induced hot electrons open up the possibility to achieve photon harvesting beyond the fundamental limit imposed by band‐to‐band transitions in semiconductors. To obtain high efficiency, both the optical absorption and electron emission/collection are crucial factors that need to be addressed in the design of hot electron devices. Here, we demonstrate a photoresponse as high as 3.3mA/W at 1500nm on a silicon platform by plasmonic absorber (PA) and omni‐Schottky junction integrated photodetector, reverse biased at 5V and illuminated with 10mW. The PA fabricated on silicon consists of a monolayer of random Au nanoparticles (NPs), a wide‐band gap semiconductor (TiO₂) and an optically thick Au electrode, resulting in broadband near‐infrared (NIR) absorption and efficient hot‐electron transfer via an all‐around Schottky emission path. Meanwhile, time and spectral‐resolved photoresponse measurements reveal that embedded NPs with superior absorption resembling plasmonic local heating sources can transfer their energy to electricity via the photothermal mechanism, which until now has not been adequately assessed or rigorously differentiated from the photoelectric process in plasmon‐mediated photon harvesting nano‐systems.     

Energetic electron emission from a ferroelectric sample during incomplete surface discharge

In this paper, the results of simplified analytical modeling and particle-in-cell numerical simulations of plasma formation and propagation along the surface of a ferroelectric sample under the application of a negative driving pulse to the rear solid electrode are presented. These models allow one to reproduce the main characteristics of the incomplete discharge. In particular, it is shown that the experimentally observed energetic electrons are related to the secondary emission electron acceleration in the sheath between the plasma and the ferroelectric surface. Also, simulation results show that secondary electron emission significantly decreases the surface plasma density while increasing its propagation velocity and that high desorption rate of the neutrals is required to sustain surface plasma formation.