Electron Kinetic Investigations of the Glow Discharge Plasma in ArHg Mixtures

In the theoretical description of mixture plasmas used in fluorescent lamps a Maxwellian energy distribution and a two‐electron‐group model has been applied to determine the transport quantities and the main collision rates of the electrons. For various parameters, especially for a wide range of the ionization degree we calculated the electron energy distribution function for the ArHg plasma from the Boltzmann equation taking into account all important elementary processes and the Coulomb interaction. Further, we made a self‐consistent determination of the ionization degree additionally applying the current balance. In this way the energy distribution function and resulting transport coefficients, collision and energy transfer rates of the electrons were calculated and a comparison with the above models was performed. An interesting finding was that they satisfactorily describe the low energy part of the energy distribution, whilst in the tail of the distribution there is a gradually underpopulation as compared to the models. Furthermore, calculated and experimental results are compared.