High-pressure dc glow discharges in hollow diamond cathodes

We report the generation and characterization of d.c. helium microdischarges at several times atmospheric pressure in monolithic diamond hollow-cathode devices having cavity diameters on the order of 100 μm. I–V characteristics indicated operation in the glow discharge regime even at nearly 10 atm, while spectroscopic measurements of the N₂ C³Π_u → B³Π_g emission returned rotational temperatures always around 420 K, with a pressure-dependent vibrational population distribution. The variation of breakdown voltage with pressure closely followed Paschen’s law, but with offsets in both axes that we tentatively ascribe to strong diffusive loss and a partial thermalization of electron energies under the high pressures considered here.