Excited state population distributions in cesiated thermionic diodes

摘要

Spectroscopic measurements were made of the excited state distributions in lowhyphen;pressure cesium thermionic diodes operated in both pulsed and continuous modes. With electron temperatures between 2000 and 3000 K, and average heavyhyphen;particle temperatures (cesium atoms and ions) of only 1100 K, the excitedhyphen;state populations were found to be thermally nonequilibrated. Several population inversions were observed under pulsed operation. These inversions are formed during electronhyphen;neutral recombination, limited by specific lsquo;lsquo;bottleneckrsquo;rsquo; deexcitation transition rates. Near inversions were noted under continuous operation.