AVS 50th International Symposium
    Vacuum Technology Thursday Sessions
       Session VT-ThA

Paper VT-ThA9
An Alternative-voltage Penning Cell for Low-voltage Vacuum Gauges and Other Applications

Thursday, November 6, 2003, 4:40 pm, Room 323

Session: Industrial Vacuum Applications
Presenter: S.A. Cherenshchykov, National Science Centre "Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology", Ukraine
Correspondent: Click to Email
A two-anode Penning cell with cold cathodes was researched. Due to additional source of a variable voltage used as power source, it becomes possible to ignite and to support the discharge at significantly lower voltage. This phenomenon was observed in a wide range of pressures (from 5 Pa up to 10@-6@ Pa). The reduction of Penning discharge voltage was up to 20 volts at the pressure value of 0.3 Pa and up to 300 volts when pressure was the lowest. The discharge current decreased together with pressure. The discharge current irreproducibility at the pressure of 10@-5@ Pa was not worse than 12 %. The current of existing discharge in magnetic field increased in many times under effect of additional variable voltage. It is supposed that efficiency of ionization of low-pressure gas will increase under affect of variable voltage. These discharge properties can make the basis for perfection of devices that use the Penning cell and other discharge magnetic cells (such as full and partial pressure gauges, leak detectors, ion pumps, ion sources and hot plasma sources). The new properties of the discharge can promote expansion of its application area, in particular, on sources of vacuum ultra-violet and soft x-ray radiation and polarized charged particles. The working model of the vacuometer was created based on such discharge. This vacuometer can unite all the advantages of magnetic discharge vacuometer and hot-cathode ionizing vacuometer. Besides it could be cheaper, is safer from the point of view of explosion possibility. Its power consumption and the heat dispersion on its gauge are almost hundred times lower. In addition, it can be smaller in volume and weight in comparison with analogues.