Polarity of breakdowns and properties of ion beams in the self-triggered mode of damped discharges

Abstract

The effects of breakdown polarity were studied with a spark source mass spectrograph using the self-triggered mode of damped discharges and a special device to suppress the ion beam when the discharge is not of the chosen polarity. Significant results were obtained from experiments on ion production efficiency, energy distribution and time of flight; e.g. ions are produced in the vapour phase from both anode and cathode, the kinetic energy of ions depends on the voltage at the location where they are produced and ions are produced during more than 300 ns in different time phases characteristic of the species.