Spectral intensity distribution in a hydrogen discharge

Abstract

A cold cathode discharge tube has an auxiliary tube attached from which cathode-rays are projected against the main cathode. A photo-electric cell, attached to a monochromatic illuminator, is used to measure relative intensity distribution of H γ and H δ respectively, from the main cathode through the cathode dark space into the negative glow with and without excitation of the auxiliary tube. When the main cathode is bombarded by the electron stream the intensity of spectral illumination in the negative glow is increased by about 20 per cent. This increase does not result from the mere addition of an illumination, which appears when the auxiliary tube is alone excited, to the illumination of the main discharge, but may be attributed to the production of soft X-rays in the gas which are capable of exciting the gas molecules. R. Seeliger and co-workers have investigated spectrophotometrically the several characteristic sections of a cold cathode discharge tube. Their method consisted of an examination, with a microphotometer, of spectrograms taken at points along the discharge. The intensity distribution of any spectral line was found continuous in passing from one portion of the discharge to another, e.g., from the Faraday dark space into the positive column, and that the maxima of illumination for different lines appeared displaced relative to one another. A. Wehnelt and A. Jachan demonstrated with several experimental arrangements the effect of bombarding the cold cathode of an ordinary discharge tube with a beam of cathode-rays. There resulted an increase in the total intensity of illumination in the tube together with a shrinkage of the cathode dark space. The purpose of the present investigation was to examine the effect such an electronic bombardment would produce upon the spectral intensity distribution near the cathode of a hydrogen discharge in Hγ and Hδ alone were capable of investigation.