An experimental study of metastable atom flux to the tube wall in an argon positive column of glow discharge

The effusion method has been used for measuring the metastable atom flux to the wall in the argon positive column over the pressure range 0.1 - 3 Torr and discharge current from 5 to 40 mA a discharge tube of radius 3.5 mm. The metastable atoms were detected by the time-of-flight technique using a gated collector. Observed variation of the flux as a function of the pressure was compared with a theory assuming the loss of metastable atoms due to diffusion and collisions with electrons and ground state atoms. (Auth.)