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Electron mobilities in binary rare gas mixtures

University of British Columbia

This thesis presents a detailed study of the composition dependence of the thermal and transient mobility of electrons in binary rare gas mixtures. The time independent electron real mobility in binary inert gas mixtures is calculated versus mole fraction for different electric field strengths. The deviations from the linear variation of the reciprocal of the mobility of the mixture with mole fraction, that is from Blanc's law, is determined and explained in detail. Very large deviations from the linear behavior were calculated for several binary mixtures at specific electric strengths, in particular for He-Xe mixtures. An interesting effect was observed whereby the electron mobility in He-Xe mixtures, for particular compositions and electron field strength could be greater than in pure He or less than in pure Xe. The time dependent electron real mobility and the corresponding relaxation time, in particular for He-Ar and He-Ne mixtures are reported for a wide range of concentrations, field strengths (d.c. electric field), and frequencies (microwave electric field). For a He-Ar mixture, the time dependent electron mobility is strongly influenced by the Ramsauer-Townsend minimum and leads to the occurrence of an overshoot and a negative mobility in the transient mobility. For He-Ne, a mixture without the Ramsauer-Townsend minimum, the transient mobility increases monotonically towards the thermal value. The energy thermal relaxation times 1/Pτ for He-Ne, and Ne-Xe mixtures are calculated so as to find out the validity of the linear relationship between the 1/Pτ of the mixture and mole fraction. A Quadrature Discretization Method of solution of the time dependent Boltzmann-Fokker-Planck equation for electrons in binary inert gas mixture is employed in the study of the time dependent electron real mobility. The solution of the Fokker-Planck equation is based on the expansion of the solution in the eigenfunctions of the Fokker-Planck operator.

Text

2010-10-18

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/29339

Chemistry

University of British Columbia

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