Comprehensive parameter study of a micro-hollow cathode discharge containing xenon

The micro-hollow cathode (MHC) discharge is investigated with respect to the application as an excimer radiation source, emitting in the VUV-region around 151 nm. For reasons of efficiency and to minimize the mean electrical power input the discharge was driven in pulsed mode. In order to analyse the VUV-generation in a MHC, especially the temporal behaviour of the absolute metastable state density of xenon (1s 5 ) in correlation with the VUV-emission was investigated. In the pulsed discharge a remarkable amount of the radiation is emitted during the temporal afterglow. In this case the excitation conditions support the dominance of ionization processes. The dissociative recombination causes a clearly visible reservoir effect. In the MHC, this effect was evidenced by the measured time dependence of densities and VUV-emission. The 1s 5 -density was measured to be on the order of 1×10 18 –1.1×10 19 m −3 .