Energetic particle and photon emission during dense plasma formation at the ferroelectric surface

Abstract

The operation of ferroelectric plasma sources (FPSs) under the application of driving pulses with different amplitudes (4–40 kV) was studied. It was found that the dense plasma formation during the fast fall (a few tens of nanoseconds) in the driving pulse is accompanied by the generation of a highly diverging (∼180°) neutral flow with a velocity of ∼7 × 107 cm s−1 in addition to the electron/ion and charged micro-particle flows which were studied in earlier research. It was shown that the velocity and intensity of the generated neutral flow remained the same for different parameters of the driving pulse. In addition a flux of x-rays with an energy of ∼20 keV was observed for ∼2 µs after the ending of the 40 kV driving pulse. A model of neutral emission based on micro-explosions of ferroelectric ceramics is suggested.