Particle simulation study of transition of spatial structure in a plane-parallel hollow cathode discharge

A self-consistent Monte Carlo particle simulation is carried out to study a transition process of macroscopic spatial structure in a plane-parallel hollow cathode discharge filled with argon. The fine subslab technique and the weight probability method are introduced here. The photoelectric emission is considered. The simulation results show that the luminous structure of the discharge is rapidly changed after a step-increase in applied voltage, and eventually the discharge plasma seems to be sustained dominantly by secondary electrons (i.e., the gamma effect) as judged from the potential profile. In the non-equilibrium transition phase, the electron energy distribution is found to consist of two components that are thermal electrons and the highenergy tail electrons.