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Updated: May 18, 2026

Building Langmuir Probes and Emissive Probes for Plasma Potential Measurements in Low Pressure, Low Temperature Plasmas
Published on: May 25, 2021
General cause of sheath instability identified for low collisionality plasmas in devices with secondary electron
M D Campanell1, A V Khrabrov, I D Kaganovich
1Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08543, USA.
Abstract:
A condition for sheath instability due to secondary electron emission (SEE) is derived for low collisionality plasmas. When the SEE coefficient of the electrons bordering the depleted loss cone in energy space exceeds unity, the sheath potential is unstable to a negative perturbation. This result explains three different instability phenomena observed in Hall thruster simulations including a newly found state with spontaneous ∼20 MHz oscillations. When instabilities occur, the SEE propagating between the walls becomes the dominant contribution to the particle flux, energy loss and axial transport.
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