Light emission during cathode sheath formation in preionized high-pressure glow discharges

The cathode sheath formation in a transient spatially small X-ray preionized high-pressure glow discharge with parameters typical for neon buffered XeCl lasers is investigated experimentally. Pictures of the light emission are taken with high temporal (/spl ap/1 ns) and spatial (/spl ap/25 /spl mu/m) resolution using a gated CCD-camera as well as a streak camera. Quantitative data on the spatial and temporal development of the sheath structure are given. The most prominent feature is an extremely fast formation of a thin and very bright cathode sheath at a time which could be time correlated with an accuracy of /spl plusmn/0.2 ns with the discharge current. The results can be used to check numerical model calculations of the sheath formation.<
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