THE INFLUENCE OF A D.C. CROSSED MAGNETIC FIELD ON THE ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE CHARACTERISTICS OF GASES IN THE TOWNSEND REGION.

Abstract

Measurements are reported of the sparking potentials in crossed uniform electric and magnetic fields in nitrogen, hydrogen and argon over a wide range of pressures and spark gap spacings to the right hand side of and including the Paschen minimum. Paschen's Law does not apply but the similarity relation that Vs = f (pd, H/p), is established in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. The equivalent pressure concept is used to assess the effect of a transverse magnetic field on the breakdown voltage. A novel method for determining the electron-molecule collision frequency from sparking potential data is described and the values so derived for nitrogen and hydrogen agree with those in the literature; those for argon are new and show the Ramsauer effect. (Author)

Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Sep 07, 1966
Accession Number
AD0647185

Entities

People

  • A. E. D. Heylen
  • C. L. Dargan

Organizations

  • University of Leeds

Tags

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Collisions
  • Electrons
  • Frequency
  • Hydrogen
  • Literature
  • Magnetic Fields
  • Measurement
  • Molecules
  • Nitrogen
  • Spark Gaps
  • Transverse

Fields of Study

  • Physics

Readers

  • Fluid Dynamics.
  • Plasma Physics.

Technology Areas

  • Microelectronics
  • Space
  • Space - Hall-Effect Thruster