Electron swarm and transport coefficients for the binary mixtures of SF6 with Ar and Xe

Abstract

A pulsed Townsend technique was used to measure the electron drift velocity, the longitudinal diffusion, and the effective ionization coefficients, and the limiting field strength for the binary mixtures of SF6 with Ar and Xe. This paper covered a wide range of the density-reduced electric field strength E/N between 50 and 700 Td (I Townsend (Td) = 10(-17) V cm(2)). The content of SF6 in the gas mixtures was varied over the range 1-90%. For the SF6-Ar mixture, the electron drift velocities were found to be higher than those for pure SF6, and conversely for the SF6-Xe mixture. The above can be explained in terms of the larger momentum transfer cross-section for electrons in Xe than in Ar. The limiting field strength for the SF6-Xe mixture was found to be higher than that for the SF6-Ar one, but still lower than that for the SF6-N-2 mixture.