Effects of foreign gases on H⁻formation in a magnetic multipole hydrogen plasma source

Abstract

The effects of admixtures of argon and xenon and of nitrogen (for the purpose of comparison between atomic and molecular additives) to a given H2 base pressure are investigated with respect to the vibrational populations of hydrogen molecules in the electronic ground state, to the density of negative ions and to the electron energy distribution function (EEDF). This work aims to unravel the influence of the vibrational population distribution and the EEDF on the formation of negative hydrogen ions in the volume of a magnetic multipole plasma source. The admixtures of these foreign gases lead to a measurable state-specific decrease in the population of the high vibrational states of the H2 molecule. Higher states exhibit a clearly stronger decrease with increasing foreign gas partial pressure. The measured density of the negative ions decreases with increasing noble gas partial pressure, despite the fact that the low-energy fraction of the measured EEDF is modified such that the efficiency of ion formation by dissociative attachment is more favourable. The various measurements are compared for the case of the H2–Ar discharge, with a global model developed for the stationary plasma state. The decrease in the density of the negative ions with increasing argon admixture can be reproduced by the model with high accuracy on the basis of measured population distributions of the vibrationally excited H2 molecules and the measured EEDF.