Low energy electron attachment to SF6 in N2, Ar, and Xe buffer gases

Abstract

The electron attachment rate constants ka for SF6 have been measured in dilute mixtures of SF6 in high pressure (>1 atm) N2, Ar, and Xe buffer gases at room temperature (T≊300 K) over a wide E/N range (electric field strength to gas number density ratio), corresponding to mean electron energies 〈ε〉 from near thermal electron energies (≊0.04 eV) to 〈ε〉≊4.3 eV. Particular attention has been paid to the effects of space charge distortion, molecular impurities, and changes in the electron energy distribution function on the measured electron attachment rate constant values at the lower E/N values in these mixtures. The present measured thermal electron attachment rate constants in SF6/N2 and SF6/Xe gas mixtures are in excellent agreement with recent accurate measurements of these parameters in several SF6/buffer gas mixtures. At higher 〈ε〉 values, the present SF6/N2 measurements are in fair agreement with previous measurements, while no previous measurements using Ar and Xe buffer gases have been published. These measurements have been used in numerical two term, spherical harmonic Boltzmann equation analyses of the electron motion in these gas mixtures to obtain the low energy (<10 eV) nondissociative and dissociative electron attachment cross sections for SF6. The present derived electron attachment cross sections are compared with recently measured and derived nondissociative and dissociative electron attachment cross sections for SF6. The primary value of the present results is in the large and overlapping 〈ε〉 ranges of the present ka measurements for the three buffer gases compared with that for SF6/N2 gas mixtures alone, which in turn, makes these measurements ideal for testing cross-section sets in SF6 for use in many applied studies.