Ion-molecule reactions and the electrical breakdown of mixtures of nitrous oxide and oxygen

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Abstract
Measurements of the spatial growth of prebreakdown ionization currents in uniform electric fields E have been made in mixtures of nitrous oxide and oxygen. The ratio of effective primary ionization coefficient to total gas number density, lambda 1/N, was found to decrease as the oxygen concentration in the mixture increased up to about 10%. This is explained in terms of the suppression of collisional detachment from NO- by the competing reaction in which NO- ions change identity in collisions with O2 molecules. Measurements of the breakdown voltage of mixtures with oxygen concentrations up to about 10% showed that the dielectric strength of the mixtures increased above that of N2O alone.