Observations of the Distortion of The Energy Distributions of Cathode Material Ions in Vacuum Arc Plasma Generated by the Microsecond LC-line Discharge

This article summarizes observations on the features of the energy spectra and the charge distribution of ions in the plasma of microsecond low-current vacuum arcs in non-stationary regimes. The underlying data were obtained in the study of variations in the charge composition of ion fluxes from the plasma of a vacuum arc discharge with a quasi-rectangular current pulse. An LC line was used as a pulse generator. The analysis was carried out using a Thomson spectrometer with digital data processing. The energy spectra of the ions of the cathode material revealed ion fluxes with energies higher than typical values for the arc discharge (up to 2 keV per charge unit). It was found that the signal intensity of this component weakly depends on the discharge current. The average charge of the high-energy component is generally higher than that of conventional arc ions. In the course of research with a time-resolving gate unit, it was found that such ions are generated at the end of the discharge. Additionally, a study of the effect of spontaneous arc discharge extinction on the charge composition of ions was carried out.