The ion- and atom-induced secondary electron emission yield: numericalstudy for the effect of clean and dirty cathode surfaces

Abstract

The effect of the ion- and atom-induced secondary electron emission yields for both `clean' and `dirty' cathode surfaces is investigated by means of a hybrid model, for typical conditions used in analytical direct current glow discharges (i.e. a pressure of 50-100 Pa, a voltage of 600-1200 V, and an electrical current of 1-10 mA). The hybrid model consists of a number of Monte Carlo models for fast electrons, fast argon ions and atoms in the cathode dark space, and sputtered copper atoms, a fluid model for slow electrons and argon ions, and a heat transfer model to calculate the gas temperature. For clean surfaces, secondary electron emission is almost exclusively attributed to argon ions, at the conditions under study. For dirty surfaces, on the other hand, fast argon ions and atoms contribute each about 50% to secondary electron emission, at the same discharge conditions. A so-called `apparent' secondary electron emission yield (i.e. per bombarding ion) is determined for the range of conditions under study. This value for clean surfaces was found equal to 0.07 for argon on a copper cathode, at all conditions investigated; for dirty surfaces, this value was always higher than 0.07 and it strongly depends on the discharge conditions. With these data, current-voltage-pressure characteristics have been calculated for both clean and dirty surfaces, and compared to experimental data. The absolute current values differ by a factor of 1-1.6 between clean and dirty surfaces. However, both calculated currents show more or less the same rise with voltage as the experimental data, in spite of the different behaviour of secondary electron emission yields for clean and dirty surfaces as a function of voltage.