ABSTRACT
Ionization and breakdown in gases in crossed electric and magnetic fields is still only a moderately explored area of research, relative to the volume of literature on other areas of gaseous electronics. The potential industrial uses of an electrical discharge where the magnetic field is perpendicular to the electric field are at least as great as those of other manifestations of discharge phenomena. The author is aware of just a single volume published on this topic, as far back as 1949.1 This has been followed by an excellent review, again the only one known to the author, by Heylen,2 covering the work done till 1980. Inevitably, we refer very frequently to this review in presenting this chapter.
