Electronic excitation of the matrix during drift of excess electrons through solid xenon

It is shown experimentally that the exciton luminescence λ=172 nm) quantum yield excited by excess electrons drifting through solid xenon at 77 K in fields of 10 kV/cm amounts to 20±5 per electron and that luminescence takes place during the entire drift process. A CW bulky discharge through solid xenon (with a current up to 20 A/cm²) is realized, and intense visible luminescence due to excitation of impurities by electron impacts is observed. The prospects for using solid rare gases as matrices for studying processes in low-temperature plasmas and for creating effective electric energy converters in the vacuum ultraviolet range are discussed.     

霍尔漂移对阳极层霍尔等离子体加速器电离效率的影响

以洛伦兹变换方法为基础,分析了阳极层霍尔等离子体加速器中电子的霍尔漂移,结果表明在交叉场中,霍尔漂移并不总是存在的,E/B的比值大于光速时,霍尔漂移将不存在.进一步的分析表明,霍尔漂移也并不总是回旋形式的,不同的电磁场配置以及不同的电子初始能量将带来不同形式的漂移,包括回旋形式,波浪线形式,甚至直线形式.电磁场的配置也决定着霍尔漂移的速度,在很大程度上影响着电子的能量,这就决定了放电时的电离效率.对不同电磁场配置进行数值模拟发现,合理的电磁场比值能够得到更好的电离效率(对于氩,这个数值大约为4×10⁶).不同的气体,根据其电离碰撞截面与电子能量的关系,都有不同的合理比值.     

Roles of voltage in semi-insulating GaAs photoconductive semiconductor switch

An experimental study of leakage current is presented in a semi-insulating(SI) Ga As photoconductive semiconductor switch(PCSS) with voltages up to 5.8 kV(average field is 19.3 kV/cm). The leakage current increases nonlinearly with the bias voltage increasing from 1.2×10~(-9)A to 3.6×10~(-5)A. Furthermore, the dark resistance, which is characterized as a function of electric field, does not monotonically decrease with the field but displays several distinct regimes. By eliminating the field-dependent drift velocity, the free-electron density n is extracted from the current, and then the critical field for each region of n(E) characteristic of PCSS is obtained. It must be the electric field that provides the free electron with sufficient energy to activate the carrier in the trapped state via multiple physical mechanisms, such as impurity ionization, fielddependent EL2 capture, and impact ionization of donor centers EL10 and EL2. The critical fields calculated from the activation energy of these physical processes accord well with the experimental results. Moreover, agreement between the fitting curve and experimental data of J(E), further confirms that the dark-state characteristics are related to these field-dependent processes. The effects of voltage on SI-Ga As PCSS may give us an insight into its physical mechanism.     

Does an electron form a bubble in liquid neon?

Muon spin relaxation measurements in liquid neon in electric fields up to 35 kV/cm reveal the existence of a delocalized electron state which is responsible for delayed muonium atom formation. Other fraction of radiolysis electrons created in the positive muon’s ionization track is believed to be localized inside bubbles and therefore possesses low mobility. Bubble formation in liquid neon is discussed in detail. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Positron annihilation in helium,argon and nitrogen liquids under an electric field

We have made new measurements of the lifetimes at 4.19 and 2.92 K in HeI, and at 2.14 and 1.67 K in HeII, without and with electric field. The ortho-positronium lifetime is independent of field up to 20 kV/cm. At 4.19 K, there is no increase observed in the positronium fraction from zero field to 20 kV/cm, in strong disagreement with Manuzio and Rizzuto. Some additional positronium is, however, formed above 20 kV/cm, with a corresponding decrease in lifetime of the free component. At 4.19 K the free positron mean life rises sharply with increasing electric field to a constant value of about 2.14 ns above 5 kV/cm. The increase in the free positron lifetime with field is less marked at 2.92 K. In liquid argon measurements were made at the normal boiling point only, at fields up to 20 kV/cm, above which we experienced electrical breakdown. The ortho-positronium intensity is 7% at zero field and begins to increase at 2.5 kV/cm, reaching 13% at 20 kV/cm at which field value it was still increasing. The ortho-positronium lifetime displayed an 8% increase over this field range. For liquid nitrogen we repeated some of our earlier measurements at 77.3 K and made some measurements at 64.5 K so as to test models for positronium formation in the spur. A good fit to a simple exponential formula is obtained at both temperatures, yielding a single drop-off rate of 0.21 cm/kV.On leave from the Physics Department, University of Toronto, Canada.     

Hot‐electron drift velocity and hot‐phonon decay in AlInN/AlN/GaN

A nanosecond‐pulsed current–voltage technique was applied to study hot‐electron transport along the two‐dimensional electron gas channel confined at a nominally undoped AlInN/AlN/GaN heterointerface. Hot‐electron drift velocity was deduced under the assumptions of uniform longitudinal electric field and field‐independent electron sheet density. At a fixed electric field strength, a resonance‐type non‐monotonous dependence of the velocity on the electron density was found in the investigated range from 1 to When the electric field increased from 20 kV/cm to 80 kV/cm, the peak velocity increased from ～1.1 to cm/s, and the position of the resonance shifted from ～1.1 to ～1.2 respectively. The resonance position correlates with that for the fastest decay of hot phonons known from independent experiment. (© 2011 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

高功率强流密度低发射度高亮度赝火花电子束产生

由修改了的脉冲线加速器驱动的、高功率(200kV)、高电流密度、低发射度、高亮度赝火花放电电子束在15pa氮气中产生。束流强度2.2kA,脉宽400ns,束径1mm的电子束从阳极口射出,可在中性氮电离通道中传输20cm。在阳极下游5cm处,电子束相继打穿紧密粘贴在一起的酸敏纸和0.05mm厚的铜箔,分别留下0.6mm和0.3mm的穿孔。依据箍缩平衡条件算出该处的高能电子束的归一化发射度和亮度分别是23πmm mrad和8×10¹⁰A/(m²rad²)。对同一酸敏纸连续轰击10次给出1.6mm穿孔表明它具有好的重复性。观察工作60枪后的放电室发现,各种电极和绝缘子表面几乎未见任何破坏性烧蚀痕迹。实验证明,赝火花电子束的束质量比冷阴极电子束的束质量要好得多。 关键词：     

大气压下氩原子谱线辐射诊断试验研究

大气压下介质阻挡放电应用领域具有多范畴、深广度、常态化等优势,针对同轴电极放电试验进行了系列参数诊断。采用自主研发的介质阻挡放电助燃激励器,在一个标准大气压、放电频率11.4 kHz、放电峰值电压5.4～13.4 kV(间隔1.0 kV)条件下进行了氩气电离试验。采用原子发射光谱法(AES)对氩等离子体谱线的激发、分光进行了检测分析;选用二谱线法及Boltzmann法测试了电子激励温度;根据Stark展宽效应计算了电子密度;获得了电子激励温度及电子密度随放电峰值电压增长的变化规律。结果表明,在试验电压条件下电子激励温度并不随外加电压的升高而递增,这表明通道内微放电的主要特征并不依赖于外部电压的供给,而是取决于气体组份、气体压强和放电模型,增大外加放电电压仅增加单位时间内微放电的数量,经整合电子激励温度可达3 500 K符合典型的低温等离子体特征;电子密度随外加电压的增长而趋于准线性趋势,电子密度数量级可达到108～109 cm-3,电离度偏弱。这些参数的探索对等离子体研讨有重大意义。     

X-band dielectric Cerenkov maser amplifier experiment

An X-band dielectric Cerenkov maser amplifier experiment is reported. The amplifier system consisted of a solid, thermionically generated electron beam propagating through a cylindrical waveguide partially filled with an annular, dielectric liner. The input signal was provided by a tunable (9-10.3 GHz) magnetron with power up to 10 kW. Electron beam voltages and currents of up to 250 kV and 100 A could be generated for 1 μs pulse durations. The system was configured to operate in the TM₀₁ mode of the dielectric-lined waveguide. In this experiment the gain of the system with respect to the length of the dielectric liner was studied at a fixed input frequency of 10.3 GHz. At electron beam parameters of 160 kV and 60 A, a power gain of 24 dB over 56 cm of interaction length was measured for an input power of 4.5 kW, corresponding to a maximum RF amplified power of 1.15 MW and 12% efficiency     

A DRIFT CHAMBER WITH UNIFORM ELECTRIC FIELD AND MEASUREMENTS OF THE ELECTRON DRIFT VELOCITY

The measurements of the electron drift velocity as a function of the electric field have been made in a small drift chamber with uniform electric field for Ar/CH₄, Ar/i-C₄H₁₀, Ar/CO₂ and SQS gas mixtures. The values of the electric field range from obout 0.3 to 2.5kV/cm. The results of the measurements are discussed.     

Laser-induced photoacoustics influenced by single-cycle terahertz radiation

Laser-induced plasma acoustic waves are enhanced under the illumination of single-cycle terahertz (THz) radiation, making THz-enhanced acoustics (TEA) a useful method for THz wave detection. During a single-cycle THz pulse with its peak field of 100 kV/cm, a pressure enhancement of 10% is observed throughout the acoustic spectrum up to 140 kHz, and the TEA signal is found to increase linearly with THz wave intensity. By using dual-color laser excitation to manipulate free electron drift, it is possible to modulate the enhanced acoustic signal and recover a coherent THz time-domain waveform by simply "listening" to the plasma.     

Doubly-differential ionization cross sections of positron impact on argon

We report the first measurement of doubly-differential ionization cross sections for positron impact on argon atoms. Energy- and angle-resolved measurements of ejected electrons in time correlation with the produced and detected ions have been performed. Corresponding measurements with incident electrons were made for comparison. With positrons and electrons as primary particles of 100 eV energy and ejected electrons of 15 eV, our measurements were extended over electron-emission angles from 0 to 90. Lacking theoretical predictions for the doubly-differential ionization of argon, we compare our measured data with the theoretical doubly-differential ionization cross sections, calculated for positron and electron impact on hydrogen by Klar and Berakdar (Freiburg) [1]. The angular dependence of positron and electron cross sections for argon agrees well with the theory for hydrogen. In particular, we found that for small angles of electron ejection the cross section for positron impact ionization exceeds that for electron impact by an order of magnitude in accordance with the predictions of Klar and Berakdar.     

Power Consideration for Pulsed Discharges in Potassium Seeded Argon

Minimization of energy consumed in plasma generation is critical for applications, in which a large volume of plasmas is needed. We suggest that a high electron density atmospheric pressure plasmas can be generated by pulsed discharges in potassium seeded argon at an elevated temperature with a very small power input. The ionization efficiency and power budget of pulsed discharges in such plasmas are analytically studied. The results show that ionization efficiency of argon, especially at small reduced electric field E/N （the ratio of the electric field to the gas number density）, is improved effectively in the presence of small amount of potassium additives. Power input of pulsed discharge to sustain a prescribed average level of ionization in potassium seeded argon is three orders of magnitude lower than that in pure argon. Further, unlike in pure argon, it is found that very short high-voltage pulses with very high repetition rates are unnecessary in potassium seeded argon. A pulse with lOOns of pulse duration, 5kHz of repetition rate, and 2Td （1 Td = 1 × 10^-21 Vm^2） of E/N is enough to sustain an electron density of 10^19 m^-3 in 1 arm 1500K Ar＋0.1% K mixture, with a very small power input of about 0.08 × 10^4 W/m^3.     

共面双对称条件下电子碰撞Ar原子单电离的一阶扭曲波Born近似

在共面双对称几何条件下,利用一阶扭曲波Born近似计算了中低能电子碰撞Ar原子(3p壳层电子)单电离的三重微分截面,并与最近的实验数据做了比较.结果表明,对于Ar原子,当入射电子能量比电离阈高40 eV以上,随着入射能量的增加,binary和recoil碰撞机理逐渐占据支配地位;在近阈能量范围,上述碰撞机理不再处于支配地位,扭曲效应明显.要完备地描述中低能入射条件下Ar原子的电子碰撞电离过程,理论模型必须同时考虑多种散射机理.     

Electrosprayed droplet impact/secondary ion mass spectrometry

A new ionization method, electrosprayed droplet impact ionization (EDI), has been developed for mass spectrometry. The charged droplets formed by electrospraying 1 M acetic acid aqueous solution are sampled through an orifice with a diameter of 400 μm into the first vacuum chamber, transported into a quadrupole ion guide and accelerated by 10 kV after exiting the ion guide. The m/z of the primary droplet projectiles range from 10 000 to 50 000. The droplets impact on a dry solid sample deposited on a stainless steel substrate. No matrix was used for the sample preparation. The secondary ions formed by the impact are transported to a second quadrupole ion guide and mass-analyzed by an orthogonal TOF-MS. Intense molecular-related ions are detected for drugs, amino acids, peptides and proteins. EDI is found to be very sensitive to molecules present near the surface of the sample.     

Pink afterglow in nitrogen-argon mixtures

The nitrogen pink afterglow was studied by optical emission spectroscopy in the DC flowing regime at a total gas pressure of 700 Pa and at the discharge current of 120 mA. The discharge was created in a Pyrex tube of 13 mm i.d. using nitrogen and argon of 99.999% purity with additional purification by Oxiclear columns and liquid nitrogen traps. The area ±3 cm around the observation point had to be cooled down to liquid nitrogen wall temperature in order to allow the study of the reactor wall temperature effect on the post-discharge. The maximum pink afterglow emission in pure nitrogen at ambient wall temperature was observed at a decay time of 6 ms. When the argon percentage in the gas mixture was increased the pink emission maximum was shifted to the later decay times. Simultaneously, the intensity of the pink afterglow decreased and at a 1:1 nitrogen-argon ratio the effect disappeared. Similar effects were also observed when the discharge tube wall around the observation point was cooled down to liquid nitrogen temperature. The argon atomic lines were only observed during the post-discharge at the highest argon concentration at a low wall temperature. The kinetic model showed that the pink afterglow quenching was connected to the decrease of the and pooling processes efficiency.     

Nonparabolic multivalley balance-equation approach to impact ionization: Application to wurtzite GaN

Extended nonparabolic multivalley balance equations including impact ionization (II) process are presented and are applied to study electron transport and impact ionization in wurtzite-phase GaN with a , L-M, and conduction band structure at high electric field up to 1000kV/cm. Hot-electron transport properties and impact ionization coefficient are calculated taking account of the scatterings from ionized impurity, polar optical, deformation potential, and intervalley interactions. It is shown that, for wurtzite GaN when the electric field approximately equals 530kV/cm, the II process begins to contribute to electron transport and results in an increase of the electron velocity and a decrease of the electron temperature, in comparison with the case without the II process. Similar calculations for GaAs are also carried out and quantitative agreement is obtained between the calculated II coefficients by this present approach and the experimental data. Relative to GaAs, GaN has a higher threshold electric field for II and a smaller II coefficient. Received: 27 April 1998 / Revised: 17 July 1998 / Accepted: 13 August 1998     

Streamers at the Subnanosecond Breakdown of Argon and Nitrogen in Nonuniform Electric Field at Both Polarities

An ICCD camera was used to study plasma glow at the stage of the streamer (ionization wave) formation in the tip–plane gap with a length of 3 mm filled with argon or nitrogen at a pressure of 12.5–400 kPa. Positive and negative nanosecond voltage pulses were applied across the gap. Images of streamer were obtained at different time at its propagation along the gap. A streak-camera equipped with a spectrometer was used to measure time evolution of the radiation intensity of nitrogen molecules at a wavelength of 337.1 nm in several regions along the gap at the negative polarity. Average streamer velocity (1.8 cm/ns) was estimated from experimental data at atmospheric pressure of nitrogen. Amplitude–time characteristics of voltage, discharge current and the current of runaway electron beam behind the aluminum-foil anode with a thickness of 10 μm were measured. Reasons for a diffuse discharge under the given experimental conditions were discussed.     

Electronic spin drift in graphene field-effect transistors

We studied the drift of electron spins under an applied dc electric field in single layer graphene spin valves in a field-effect transport geometry at room temperature. In the metallic conduction regime (n approximately 3.5 x 10(16) m(-2)), for dc fields of about +/- 70 kV/m applied between the spin injector and spin detector, the spin valve signals are increased or decreased, depending on the direction of the dc field and the carrier type, by as much as +/- 50%. Sign reversal of the drift effect is observed when switching from hole to electron conduction. In the vicinity of the Dirac neutrality point the drift effect is strongly suppressed. The experiments are in quantitative agreement with a drift-diffusion model of spin transport.     

Gas-filled electron diode based on a glow discharge

Stable ignition and sustention of a pulsed discharge with a current of up to 180 A and duration of 12 μs at a pressure of 10⁻¹–10⁻² Pa are achieved in a glow-discharge plasma cathode with the help of an auxiliary initiating discharge. An electron emission current density of up to 100 A/cm² and accelerating voltageof 15 kV are obtained in a gas-filled diode based on this type of a plasma cathode. An electron beam witha neutralized space charge can be transported almost without losses in a weak axial magnetic field alonga plasma channel formed due to the gas ionization by the accelerated electrons over a distance of up to 30 cm.