Mobility of He^{+}, Ne^{+}, Ar^{+}, N_{2}^{+}, O_{2}^{+}, and CO_{2}^{+} in their parent gas

Abstract

We have used a drift tube with double mass spectrometry to measure the mobility of ${\mathrm{He}}^{+},$ ${\mathrm{Ne}}^{+},$ ${\mathrm{Ar}}^{+},$ ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}^{+},$ ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}^{+},$ and ${\mathrm{CO}}_{2}^{+}$ in their parent gas over a wide range of the density-normalized electric field, $E/N,$ from 70 to $12500\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}21}{\mathrm{V}\mathrm{}\mathrm{m}}^{2}.$ In all cases, the $E/N$ ranges have exceeded those hitherto found in the literature, especially those of ${\mathrm{Ar}}^{+}$ in Ar and ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}^{+}$ in ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}.$ Our mobility data are in fair to excellent agreement with previous experimental data in the overlap range. Recent calculated data for the mobility of ${\mathrm{Ar}}^{+}$ in Ar show excellent agreement with our data at high $E/N,$ while fair agreement was observed for the calculated data of the systems ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}^{+}$ in ${\mathrm{N}}_{2}$ and ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}^{+}$ in ${\mathrm{O}}_{2}.$ Also, the ${\mathrm{Ar}}^{+}$ in Ar mobilities for $E/N>10\mathrm{kTd}$ were found in excellent agreement with those derived from the measurement of the mean ion energy in diffuse Townsend discharges $(1{\mathrm{T}\mathrm{d}=1\mathrm{}\mathrm{t}\mathrm{o}\mathrm{w}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{s}\mathrm{e}\mathrm{n}\mathrm{d}=10}^{\mathrm{\ensuremath{-}}21}{\mathrm{}\mathrm{V}\mathrm{}\mathrm{m}}^{2}).$ To the best of our knowledge, over some $E/N$ ranges, our data were found to be the first to be reported.