Prebreakdown Currents From Tungsten Samples Covered With Thin Films

Author

Sinelnikov, D.N. ; Kurnaev, V.A. ; Mamedov, N.V.

Author_Institution

Nat. Res. Nucl. Univ. MEPhI, Moscow, Russia

Volume

43

Issue

8

fYear

2015

fDate

Aug. 2015

Firstpage

2299

Lastpage

2302

Abstract

The results of current-voltage characteristics (CVCs) of low-field emission (LFE) measurement from tungsten cathodes covered by a thin (~10 Å) discontinuous insulator film are presented. Such characteristics have a strong hysteresis effect and can be interpreted by switch-ON model. The current density of LFE is significantly higher than that of pure tungsten and comparable with that of tungsten fuzz nanostructure-the surface with high emissivity. The influence of water adsorption layers on the emission currents demonstrates increasing hysteresis effect in the CVCs in the case of cathode exposition under the injection without voltage applying in vacuum diode.

Keywords

cathodes; electric current measurement; insulators; plasma-wall interactions; thin films; tungsten; voltage measurement; cathode exposition; current-voltage characteristics; emission currents; low-field emission measurement; prebreakdown currents; strong hysteresis effect; thin discontinuous insulator film; thin films; tungsten cathodes; tungsten samples; vacuum diode; water adsorption layers; Cathodes; Current measurement; Insulators; Ions; Plasmas; Switches; Tungsten; Ion mass spectrometry; low-field emission (LFE); metal???insulator???vacuum structure; unipolar arcs;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0093-3813

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/TPS.2015.2437617

Filename

7182441