In the course of developing a new type of particle detector utilizing a gas discharge phenomenon in a pulsed microwave field, some characteristic features of the discharge have been studied.
A theoretical analysis has been done as for the possibility to produce a localized plasma as small as about one cubic millimeter, and luminous enough for photography, because of the necessity of obtaining a thin and bright track as a particle detector.
The experimental results show a fairly good agreement with the predicted values; the electron density of the order of about 10
14/C. C. has been obtained in the localized plasma under a pulsed microwave field of 5000MC/S, 0.1μs width and 3kv/cm of the field strength, applied to a gas mixture of 500mmHg of Neon and a small percent Argon.
The mechanisum of the recovery processes of the discharge is also discussed with particular attention to the after-glow due probably to recombination processes.
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