Spark discharges in iodine vapour
- 14 August 1981
- journal article
- Published by IOP Publishing in Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics
- Vol. 14 (8) , 1445-1458
- https://doi.org/10.1088/0022-3727/14/8/011
Abstract
Sparks in iodine vapour have been studied at pressures between 0.08 and 0.80 Torr, and for gaps of the order of 10 cm. Sparks were initiated in non-uniform fields, using voltage pulses between 1 kV and 3 kV, corresponding to overvoltages of up to 300%. Development of the spark proceeds through a glow phase to a filamentary arc. The glow-arc transition is a two-stage process, involving the formation of a cathode spot, with a corresponding drop in cathode fall voltage, followed by constriction of the positive column, during which molecular dissociation occurs. Following construction, the arc expands radially and a temperature of 5000K and electron density of 6*1012 cm-3 are reached before decay sets in. During spark decay, a transition occurs from an atomic to a molecular arc phase.Keywords
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