Investigation of the proportional discharge mechanism in nonelectronegative gases

A shape of the signals in the proportional chamber with preamplification gap and electron component extraction from proportional discharge has been investigated. It was shown for Penning mixtures that in proportional discharge besides the primary avalanches there is also the tail of secondary avalanches caused by metastable and nonmetastable Penning effects. For different mixtures of gases, the duration of the signals caused by secondary avalanches are equal to ∼n×10 μs (n≅1–10), the total charge of secondary avalanches is comparable or larger than primary avalanches.