Breakdown in hydrogen and deuterium gases in static and radio-frequency fields

TL;DR

This study combines experiments and modeling to analyze electrical breakdown in hydrogen and deuterium gases under static and RF fields, highlighting the challenges in modeling deuterium due to limited data.

Contribution

It provides experimental RF breakdown data for hydrogen and compares it with simplified Monte Carlo simulations, revealing discrepancies for deuterium.

Findings

Good agreement between experiment and simulation for hydrogen RF breakdown.

Simulation struggles to reproduce deuterium RF breakdown due to limited cross section data.

Experimental DC Paschen curve used to determine secondary electron emission coefficients.

Abstract

We report the results of a combined experimental and modeling study of the electrical breakdown of hydrogen and deuterium in static (DC) and radio-frequency (RF, 13.56 MHz) electric fields. For the simulations of the breakdown events, simplified models are used and only electrons are traced by Monte Carlo simulation. The experimental DC Paschen curve of hydrogen is used for the determination of the effective secondary electron emission coefficient. A very good agreement between the experimental and the calculated RF breakdown characteristics for hydrogen is found. For deuterium, on the other hand, presently available cross section sets do not allow a reproduction of RF breakdown characteristics.