New Type of Two-Stream Plasma Instability

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
The stability of one of the low-frequency plasma oscillation modes is examined from the standpoint of two-fluid theory. It is found that when the scattering time is short enough, a density perturbation may actually grow at the frequency of one of the acoustic modes. In this short scattering time regime, the phase difference between the electron and hole perturbation velocities can lead to a net growth of the perturbation. If the damping effects of diffusion and recombination of excess carriers can be overcome by the growing mechanism, the net result would be a growing instability. The results presented are applicable to both gaseous and solid-state plasmas. Some discussion is given on which solid-state materials might exhibit this new instability. It is found that InSb is best, but that bismuth might also be suitable.

This publication has 7 references indexed in Scilit: