Experimental investigation about energy balance of electron emission from materials under electron impacts at low energy: application to silver, graphite and SiO2

M. Villemant (1) , P. Sarrailh (1) , M. Belhaj (1) , Laurent Garrigues (2) , C. Boniface (3)

1 ONERA - The French Aerospace Lab [Toulouse]
2 LAPLACE-GREPHE - Groupe de Recherche Energétique, Plasmas et Hors Equilibre
3 CNES - Centre National d'Études Spatiales [Toulouse]

The energy balance measurement of electron emission at a wall submitted to electron impact at low incident energy is a topic of interest for miscellaneous technological applications. This article points out the experimental protocol, biases corrections and post-process needed to obtain reproducible and quantitative electron emission measurements. The measurements have been performed for incident electrons energy between 5 eV and 105 eV and for three samples materials: silver, graphite and SiO 2. These measurements show that wall absorbs more energy at high incident electrons energy and that graphite absorbs more energy than silver, than SiO 2. Results are presented for mono-energetic incident electron beam and for a Lambertian energy distribution. Analytical laws fitted from experimental results and applicable for modelling issue are proposed for a Lambertian distribution of incident electrons.

Mots clés: ELECTRON EMISSION; ENERGY BALANCE; HALL THRUSTERS; PLASMA MODELLING; ELECTRONSMATERIAL INTERACTIONS

Domaines: Physique des plasmas [physics.plasm-ph]

M. Villemant, P. Sarrailh, M. Belhaj, Laurent Garrigues, C. Boniface. Experimental investigation about energy balance of electron emission from materials under electron impacts at low energy: application to silver, graphite and SiO2. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 2014, 50 (48), ⟨10.1088/1361-6463/aa91af⟩. ⟨hal-01716166⟩