PRIMARY IONIZATION COEFFICIENT OF NEON

The primary ionization coefficient α of spectroscopically pure neon has been evaluated from measurements of the spatial dependence of small ionization currents between plane-parallel gold electrodes for the range 8<E/p0<70 V cm-1 torr-1 and 4<p 0<105 torr where E is the applied electric field and p0 is the gas pressure (corrected to 273°K). Within the limits of experimental error the coefficient α/p0 was found to be a function of E/p0 only. The secondary ionization coefficient ω/α was also evaluated for the same range of E/p0.