ABSTRACT
Electric discharges in gases are generators of plasma. The term “gas discharge” initially defined the process of “discharge” of a capacitor into a circuit containing a gas gap between two electrodes. The glow discharge with normal current density on its cathode is usually referred to as the normal glow discharge. Thus the current-voltage characteristic of the positive column and of a whole normal glow discharge is almost a horizontal straight line in this case as well as in the diffusion-controlled discharge mode. The configuration, optimized as an electron bombardment plasma source, is coaxial and includes the hollow cathode ionizer as well as a diverging magnetic field. The strongly non-equilibrium glow discharge plasma has been successfully applied at different power levels as the active medium for different gas lasers.
