Influence of residual gases on cathode spot behavior

A residual gas in a vacuum arc chamber influences the behavior of the arc by two effects: it changes the state of the cathode surface, in particular the surface cleanness, and it influences the interelectrode plasma. Experiments are summarized dealing with the influence of the residual gas on the arc parameters in a pressure range of 10^-6-10^-5 Pa. With increasing pressure, general tendencies are a decrease in the fluctuations of the burning voltage, in the chopping current, and in the current density, and an increase in the arc lifetime, spot velocity, and spot diameter. The conditions at the cathode surface are decisive for the spot behavior and not the pressure. Surface contaminations render the arc more stable. The transition between the so-called cathode spot type 1 (on contaminated surfaces) and type 2 (on clean surfaces) was found to be smooth rather than abrupt     

Why vacuum arc cathode spots can appear larger than they are

The visual appearance of arc cathode spots in vacuum is studied experimentally and theoretically. Emission photographs of the spots taken with line radiation have a broad light profile with a rather flat slope (proportional to r^-β with β≈2, r being the distance from the spot center), while photographs taken in absorption are small, having a sharp edge with a steep slope of the profile (β⩾4). Emission photographs from the continuum are similar to absorption photographs. Theoretical analysis shows that the emitted line radiation cannot stem from the locus of excitation. As a consequence, the particles are excited at the edge of the dense spot core, but they radiate at a greater distance due to the finite lifetime of the excited levels and the plasma expansion. Thus, emission photographs from line radiation indicate a greater spot size (about 100 μm) than corresponding to the active spot radius which amounts to ⩽10 μm. This statement holds for discharge durations from 10 ns up to at least 100 μs. The spots exist not only at ignition but during the whole time of the discharge, the location varying due to the spot movement. Absorption photographs show a small size of 10-20 μm still 200 μs after ignition     

The behavior of vacuum arc discharges on hydrogen impregnatedelectrodes

This paper reports on experimental studies of the behavior of vacuum arcs at hydrogen impregnated electrodes. The arc discharges were analyzed by high speed photography, open shutter photography, measurement of arc voltage and current, and measurements of the erosion in dependence on the level of impregnation for a wide range of arc currents. The results show that impregnation of electrodes with hydrogen reduces the erosion rate, causes smaller crater dimensions, changes the macroparticle size, and decreases the current per spot. For a given current the arc voltage depends on the degree of impregnation. At low current it decreases with increasing impregnation. Furthermore, the arc discharge burns more stable on impregnated electrodes. The total erosion rate decreases significantly due to the reduction of the droplet fraction. The spot movement is faster than on nonimpregnated electrodes     

On the ion energy distribution of high current arcs in vacuum

With the experiments presented in this paper, applications of a retarding field analyzer (RFA) for the measurement of the ion energy E _i in a vacuum arc plasma are discussed. The examined plasma was produced by a sinusoidal half-wave vacuum arc current. The experiments were concentrated on evaluating the plasma parameters at the last three milliseconds before current zero. In a current range from 300 A_rms to 10 kA_rms, the ion energy distributions and their peak values were evaluated. With the increase of the arc current, a decrease of the ion energy was found. By additional investigations of the angular distribution of the ion energies, a transition from a collision dominated interelectrode plasma to a freely expanding plasma was observed, depending on the arc current     

Time dependence of vacuum arc parameters

Time-resolved investigations of the expanded plasma of vacuum arc cathode spots are described, including the study of the ion charge state distribution, the random cathode spot motion, and the crater formation. It was found that the ion charge state distribution changes over a timescale on the order of hundreds of microseconds. For the random spot motion two timescales were observed: a very short spot residence time of tens of nanoseconds which gives, combined with the step width, the diffusion parameter of the random motion, and a longer timescale on the order of 100 μs during which the diffusion parameter changes. Crater formation studies by scanning electron microscopy indicate the occurrence of larger craters at the end of crater chains. The existence of a timescale much longer than the elementary times for crater formation and spot residence can be explained by local heat accumulation     

Pulsed dye laser diagnostics of vacuum arc cathode spots

The ignition and arc phases of vacuum arcs were investigated using differential dye laser absorption photography with simultaneous high spatial (micrometer) and temporal (nanosecond) resolution. The discharge duration was 800 ns, the current 50-150 A, the electrode material copper, and the cathode-anode distance less than 50 μm. A 0.4 ns laser pulse (tunable, γ=480-530 nm) was used to obtain momentary absorption photographs of the cathode region. During ignition, an optically thick anode plasma expanded toward the cathode, decaying within 25 ns after bridging the electrode gap. In the arc phase, a fragmentary structure of the cathode spots was observed in situ for the first time. The microspots have a characteristic size of 5-10 μm. They appear and disappear on a nanosecond time scale. The plasma density of the microspots was estimated to be greater than (3-6)×10²⁶ m^-3     

Nanosecond displacement times of arc cathode spots in vacuum

With a high speed camera consisting of a combination of framing and streak channels, arc spots on a copper cathode are imaged in the spectral range 200-800 nm with spatial and time resolution of <5 μm and ⩽10 ns, respectively. At currents of 30-70 A and sufficiently long time after ignition (3-300 μs), the spots consist of fragments with diameters of 10-20 μm. These fragments appear and disappear in a cyclic way. Formation times <50 ns and residence times <100 ns have been observed. Apparent fragment merging into one spot is due to the extinction of all of them except one, while apparent spot splitting is due to the formation of a new fragment outside the spot center. Consecutive fragment formation appears as displacement with momentary velocities up to 1000 m/s. The fragment dynamics leads to random displacement of the spot center with a ratio of mean square displacement 〈R²〉 to the observation time t of 〈R²〉/t=(2.3±0.6)×10^-3m ²/s. This holds down to t=100 ns. Thus, fragments and spots operate on nanosecond time scales. Prior to apparent spot splitting and after apparent fragment merging the spot brightness increases considerably. When analyzing time-integrated pictures, the stages of increased brightness lead to overestimating the average residence time. Because of the short formation time, the fragments do not reach a balance between surface heating and heat conduction into the bulk, i.e., there is no stationary evaporation. A further substructure of the fragments exists with size <5 μm and timescale ⩽10 ns     

Measurements of the behaviour of neutral atom density in a diffusevacuum arc by laser-induced fluorescence (LIF)

The method of laser-induced fluorescence was used to study the behavior of the absolute neutral vapor density of a diffuse vacuum arc on FeCu contacts. The local and temporal resolutions were 1 mm³ and 10 μs, respectively. The arc current had a sinusoidal shape of 5.8-ms duration with peak values of 90 and 510 A. It was found that the maximum densities of the iron and copper atoms are 1.2×10 ¹⁷ m^-3 and 7.5×10¹⁷ m^-3, respectively. During the arc the density was correlated with the current. At current zero the measured densities decreased to 10 ¹⁶ m^-3. After current zero, an exponential density decay with a time constant of about 100 μs was observed, indicating the recovery of dielectric strength after current zero. Measurements of the neutron iron vapor density at different spatial positions in the electrode gap reveal a nonisotropic distribution. From the measurements of the population distribution of the iron ground-state multiplet a ⁵D, the excitation temperature was derived. This temperature was low compared with the cathode spot temperature 2500-4000 K and decreased from 1600 K at the current maximum to 1000 K at current zero. The results indicate that the generation of neutrals is caused by flying evaporating metal droplets rather than by molten surface areas