Investigation of the Production of High Density Uniform Plasmas

摘要

The cathode layer instability which leads to the initiation of streamers in non-self-sustaining discharges is studied by shadowgraph photography. The effects of cathode material and discharge gas composition are investigated. A theoretical model of the instability is formulated and compared with the data. Framing camera color photographs of streamers are obtained and shown to be consistent with a previously developed theory of streamer propagation. (Author)