Study of VUV Emission From Xe–Ne Microhollow Cathode Discharge in the Self-Pulsing Regime

Abstract

This article by employing a zero-dimensional model investigates vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission from a xenon–neon microdischarge. The effects of the pressure, the input voltage, and the neon fraction are carefully studied. For specific input voltages, the microdischarge operates in an oscillatory regime which is called the self-pulsing regime. The self-pulsing frequency is mainly affected by the input voltage as well as the pressure. Increasing the input voltage enhances the average densities but has no effects on the peak densities. However, the pressure has significant effects on both densities. The main peaks of the VUV emission spectrum are seen at $\lambda =173$ nm and $\lambda =147$ nm which are attributed to xenon triplet-excited dimers and resonance-level excited atoms, respectively. Adding the neon gas enhances the emission at 147 nm through reducing the power loss in elastic collisions, but attenuates the emission at 173 nm. The results also show that steady-state densities of the major VUV emitters in the stationary regime are higher than the time average densities in the self-pulsing regime. Although, the lower power consumption of the self-pulsing regime has a more decisive effect such that the VUV emission efficiency in the self-pulsing regime is greater than that of the stationary regime.