A large emitting area UV light source with semiconductor cathode

Light emission in the ultraviolet (UV) and visible (blue) range (330-440 nm) generated by a planar gas discharge system and the possibility of locally increasing the discharge light emission for a given photosensitivity of a planar GaAs semiconductor cathode has been studied. The use of metallic patched concentrators with an area of S=5/spl times/10/sup -4/ cm/sup 2/ and a density of 400 cm/sup -2/ leads to a fivefold increase in the gas light density. In a system with metallic patched concentrators, the local density of gas discharge light exceeds the density of uniform gas discharge light in the ionization system as many times as the working area of the semiconductor cathode exceeds the total area of the current concentrators. By using the infrared light to excite the semiconductor cathode of the system, we have shown that the uniform discharge light emission of the device with N/sub 2/ in the gap can serve as a source of UV radiation with a large emitting area of GaAs cathode if gas pressure and electric field are sufficiently high. Moreover, the use of metallic patched concentrators prolongs the working time of the cathode. The filamentation was primarily due to the formation of a space charge of positive ions in the discharge gap, which changed the discharge from the Townsend to the glow type.