Study of effective secondary electron emission in dc breakdown of argon with various metal electrodes

An attractive aspect of Townsend's expression for the ionization coefficient, $\alpha \quad =$ A exp[-B/(E/p)], is that the exponential form allows a derivation of a neat analytical expression for the Paschen curve. Notwithstanding the elegance and fame of this expression, the theoretical Paschen curve does not always provide an accurate prediction for all E/p ranges and all gases. Deviations can be attributed to a variety of factors, including non-exponential behavior of $\alpha $ at higher E/p, variations of $\gamma $ with E/p and geometric effects. An experimental study of the effective secondary electron emission in Townsend breakdown has been conducted in Ar using a variety of electrodes. The threshold breakdown voltage was measured when the current became self-sustained, which corresponded to an effective secondary emission coefficient of $\gamma \quad =$ 1/[exp(($\alpha $/p)pd)-1]. This allowed a fundamental relationship to be derived between $\gamma $ and E/p from an experimental Paschen curve. In this work, argon gas was studied with copper, aluminum and platinum electrodes. The trends of the effective secondary electron emission are analyzed in different E/p ranges for various modes of secondary electron emission, including Ar ion impact, photon absorption, Ar metastable collisions and heavy-particle-ionization.