Study of the discharge mode in micro-hollow cathode

In this study, micro-hollow cathode discharge (MHCD) is investigated by a fluid model with drift-diffusion approximation. The MHC device is a cathode/dielectric/anode sandwich structure with one hole of a diameter D=200 μ m. The gas is a Ne/Xe mixture at a pressure p=50∼500 Torr. The evolutions of the discharge show that there are two different discharge modes. At larger pD the discharge plasma and high density excited species expand along the cathode surface and, a ringed discharge mode is formed. At smaller pD, the discharge plasma and the excited species expand along the axis of the cathode aperture to form a columnar discharge.