Race Track Formation in a Magnetically Enhanced Hollow Cathode Electron Source

Author

Dorf, Leonid ; Ming-Feng Wu ; Rauf, Sakandar ; Collins, Ken ; Monroy, Gonzalo ; Belostotskiy, Sergey

Author_Institution

Appl. Mater., Inc., Santa Clara, CA, USA

Volume

42

Issue

10

fYear

2014

fDate

Oct. 2014

Firstpage

2584

Lastpage

2585

Abstract

Immersing a hollow cathode into a magnetic field enhances trapping of fast cathode electrons and ionization, providing ~30% decrease in the discharge voltage for a given current. The nonuniform magnetic field in our electron source causes an intricate visual phenomenon-formation of bright plasma cords (race tracks) near two opposite walls, in a region, where the field component parallel to the walls is the strongest.

Keywords

cathodes; electron sources; ionisation; plasma boundary layers; plasma magnetohydrodynamics; plasma sheaths; plasma sources; bright plasma cords; discharge voltage; fast cathode electron trapping; field component; ionization; magnetically enhanced hollow cathode electron source; nonuniform magnetic field; opposite walls; race track formation; visual phenomenon-formation; Anodes; Cathodes; Electron sources; Ionization; Magnetic separation; Plasmas; Saturation magnetization; Electron beams; electron sources; plasma sheaths;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2014.2351409

Filename

6894590