Moving Striations in an Argon Glow Discharge.

摘要

Moving striations in a direct current argon glow discharge were studied over a pressure range from 11 mm of mercury to 200 microns of mercury and over the current range from 25 ma to 0.13 ma. Striations were found present at all pressures and currents, and the striation patterns observed were divided into four general regions with patterns becoming extremely complicated at the lower pressures. A disturbance in the positive column which seemed to originate at the cathode and propagate toward the anode was studied extensively using rotating mirror photography, an oscilloscope in conjunction with photomultipliers, and a spectrograph. Attempts were made to identify this disturbance as a negative striation, but it did not fit the characteristics or the descriptions offered by other investigators nor did it depend in any simple way upon the glow discharge parameters.