Non-isothermal Plasmas in the Rare Gases

Abstract

KENTY¹ noticed, many years ago, the finite lapse of time occurring between the termination of current flow in a low-pressure discharge in argon and the occurrence of maximum visible intensity of the afterglow. He suggested that the latter was due largely to radiative electron-ion recombination, and that the time-lapse was necessary for the electron temperature to fall to a value comparable with the gas temperature when the afterglow intensity would have reached a maximum, since recombination would continually reduce the electron and ion density. Bayet² and others have noticed a similar phenomenon and attribute it to the same cause. Also, an analogous effect due to pickup, in the afterglow, of electron energy from a microwave beam has been elegantly demonstrated by Goldstein and his collaborators³.