The Effects of Beam Currents on Electron Energy Distributions.

摘要

An attempt is made at determining the effects of an external flux of high energy electrons on the electron energy distribution function. An analytical model is developed for a simple system and compared against numerical results. Normalization problems precluded detailed investigation of the analytic solution. Numerical solutions were obtained for a more complex system using a Boltzmann computer code developed for this and three related theses. It was found that an electron beam tends to mask the effects of an applied dc field in the high energy region of the electron distribution function. This accounts for an uncharacteristic dip in efficiency curves for processes with high threshold energies as the magnitude of the applied field increases. The beam also accounts for an insensitivity of pumping rate constants to variations in applied field strength for processes with high threshold energies. (Author)