Vacuum emission and breakdown characteristics of a planar He-Xe microdischarge

Vacuum emission, breakdown, and current-voltage characteristics of a large surface area-to-volume ratio planar dc microdischarge have been measured fo r different He-Xe mixtures in the range of 10%-100% Xe and pressures in the range of 60-500 Torr. The electrical measurements show that the Paschen br eakdown curves and the current-voltage characteristics are primarily contro lled by the xenon concentration in the mixture. A study of the vacuum ultra violet emission of xenon atoms at 147 nm and of xenon dimers at 150 nm norm alized to the discharge power reveals the presence of local maxima in the e mitted intensity as a function of discharge pressure and xenon concentratio n, indicative of complex excited-state atomic and excimer kinetic processes . (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(00)00605-7].