Investigation of the characteristics of the explosive emission plasma of a liquid Ga cathode

A comprehensive study of the cathode plasma generated by a short (/spl sim/100 ns) vacuum spark with a liquid-metal Ga cathode (LMC) has been performed. Using the method of measuring the "wall" current and time-of-flight mass spectroscopy has made it possible to investigate the most important plasma parameters (expansion velocity, temperature, density, and ion charge state distribution) and to measure some parameters characterizing the cathode processes (ion current percentage and ion erosion rate).