XI.Negative sections of the cold-cathode glow discharge in helium

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Abstract
An outline is presented of the results of the first part of an investigation of a cold-cathode low-voltage glow discharge in He at about 1 mm. pressure made chiefly by collector methods supplemented optically. Data so obtained are less exact than with discharge forms passing heavier currents, but represent an advance on older methods in enabling outstanding problems to be defined more precisely even when not yet solved. Neglecting the negative glow and Faraday dark-space plasmas, analysis of which is being continued, attention is particularly directly to (1) the collector evidence for emission of fast electrons from the cathode (this illustrates the difficulty of deciding between macroscopic and atomic effects in a discharge); (2) the uncertainty as to the electrical conditions in the gas close to the cathode in the primary dark-space and cathode glow; (3) the fact that analysis of cathode dark-space collector characteristics would possibly yield data for a region of space-charge similar to data obtained with collectors in a plasma; (4) the factors controlling the sharpness of the boundary between negative glow and cathode dark space, viz., the abruptness of the change in slope of the potential curve at the boundary and the mean energy of the slow electrons in the negative glow.

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