Passage of electrical current through liquid tungsten hexafluoride

The natural and radiation-induced electric conductivity of liquid tungsten hexafluoride was investigated. Due to the large electron transfer of WF₆ the barrier for electron transfer from the metal cathode into the liquid is less than 1 eV. Formation of negative ions near the cathode takes place and the magnitude of the current density is determined by the rate of escape of these ions due to diffusion and externally applied electric field. The radiation-induced charge-carrier yield was measured as a function of the electric field strength. Although the ion yield per unit of absorbed energy is much smaller than in hydrocarbons, due to the high-density WF₆ a comparable number of ions is produced if equal volumes are compared