Mechanisms of a linear hollow cathode used for the production of a helium plasma sheet

Abstract

A hollow-cathode device has been shown to operate as a plasma reflector for radar electronic beam steering using helium in the 0.2-0.5 Torr pressure range. Compared to former experiments, the use of this light gas reduces significantly spurious sputtering effect on the cathode materials. In a previous paper, a semi-quantitative physical model was developed to calculate the time evolution of the sheet reflectivity from the experimental current Id(t) measured across the discharge. A self-consistent, numerical, stationary model is now developed to describe the main physical mechanisms that govern the hollow-cathode source. The model describes the coupling between the high-voltage collisional sheath and the magnetized plasma through the hollow cathode. The cold electron creation rate includes the efficiency of ionization from the fast secondary electrons emitted from the surface of the cathode, lowered by the three-body recombination process in volume and by the ejection of a part of these fast electrons out of the cathode plasma. As the recombination rate scales as Te-9/2, the energy balance of the electrons must be solved precisely, so that the collisional-radiative exchanges in Helium are included in the model. The results are then compared to the experimental V-I characteristics for different pressures of the neutral gas; there is good agreement between the theoretical plasma model and the experiment.