The Hydrogen Dissociator

A performance analysis is presented for the hydrogen dissociator used in hydrogen masers to provide a beam of atomic hydrogen. An analysis of the discharge characteristics yields relations for electron temperature as a function of vessel size and gas pressure and for plasma density as a function of power input. Also a relation between ion impact energy at the wall and electron temperature is derived. For a typical dissociator (2" diameter, 0.1 Torr hydrogen pressure, and 4 watt input power) these relationships yield an electron temperature of 39,000°K, a plasma density of 1011 cm-3 and an ion impact energy of 20 volts. The dissociation rate is calculated using published cross-sections. Assuming a recombination rate of 4 × 10-3, the analysis yields an atomic hydrogen density of about 1014 cm-3, a degree of dissociation of 2%, and an atomic beam flux of 1.3 × 1018 cm-2 × sec-1 for the example quoted. This beam flux is in good agreement with estimated values for hydrogen masers. A coefficient for performance ¿ is derived for the hydrogen dissociator, defined as the ratio of atomic beam flux to discharge power consumption. It is shown that ¿ is a function of the electron temperature and has a maximum at 87,000°K. It is concluded from this analysis that the discharge in presently used hydrogen dissociators is well optimized given the pressure constraints of the system.