Characteristic of a spherical probe in a stationary gas during ionization of alkaline metals

This paper considers a spherical Langmuir probe in a stationary weakly ionized collisional plasma consisting of neutral molecules, positive ions, and the electrons resulting from ionization of additive atoms. The effect of the ionization of the additive and recombination of charged particles on the current-voltage characteristics of the probe was studied numerically under the assumption that the plasma is isothermal. Probe characteristics are presented in the form of plots over a wide range of the ratio of the Debye radius to the radius of the probe for various types of particle-surface interactions.