Role of electrostatic and magnetic electron confinement in a hollow-cathode glow discharge in a nonuniform magnetic field

Glow discharge with electron confinement in an electrostatic trap has been studied. The trap is formed by a cylindrical hollow cathode, as well as by a flat target on its bottom and a grid covering its output aperture, both being negatively biased relative to the cathode. At a gas pressure of 0.2–0.4 Pa, the fraction of ions sputtering the target (δ = 0.13) in the entire number of ions emitted by the uniform discharge plasma corresponds to the ratio of the target surface area to the total surface area of the cathode, grid, and target. When a nonuniform magnetic field with force lines passing through the target center (where the magnetic induction reaches 35 mT), as well as through the grid, hollow cathode, and target periphery (where the field lines are arc-shaped), is applied to the trap, its influence on the discharge depends on the magnetic induction B0 at the target edge. At B0 = 1 mT, the electrons emitted from the target periphery and drifting azimuthally in the arc-shaped field insignificantly contribute to gas ionization. Nevertheless, since fast electrons that are emitted from the cathode and oscillate inside it are forced by the magnetic field to come more frequently to the target, thereby intensifying gas ionization near the latter, the fraction δ doubles and the plasma density near the target becomes more than twice as high as that near the grid. At B0 = 6 mT, the contribution of electrons emitted from the target surface to gas ionization near the target grows up and δ increases two more times. At cathode-target voltages in the range of 0–3 kV, the current in the target circuit vanishes as the voltage between the anode and the cathode decreases to zero.