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April 1978
PREFACE TO THE RUSSIAN EDITION
The fundamental physical processes in plasma diodes that convert thermal energy directly to electrical energy are outlined in this monograph. Historically, the first proposals to use thermionic emission for direct conversion of thermal energy to electrical energy were advanced by Schlichter and Richardson at the beginning of this century, soon after Edison discovered the phenomenon of thermionic emission of electrons.
The first experimental and theoretical investigations of the thermionic converter (TIC) in the USSR were begun in 1950 at the initiative of A. F. Ioffe and N. D. Morgulis. These early investigations were interrupted by the war and were resumed in the Soviet Union only during the middle of the 1950’s, when the development of atomic power and the requirements of space technology brought into being a program for the practical development of autonomous* atomic power plants. At approximately the same time, similar investigations began abroad, primarily in the United States.
As a result of these studies, the main in processes in plasma diodes have been determined. Successful solution of the complicated engineering and technological problems has made possible the development in the USSR of the world’s first full-scale "Topaz" (thermionic) nuclear power plants. And at
the present time the problem of using thermionic converters in large—scale power engineering is being considered. All this makes urgent the publication of monographs, which bring together the results of past experimental and theoretical investigations of plasma thermionic converters. These results, until now, have been scattered in numerous articles, reports, and dissertations.This monograph was written by several authors, experimenters and theoreticians, who make up a group created by A. F. Ioffe at the Institute of Semiconductors of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The group has specialized in the study of TIC plasmas. Accordingly, the main attention of the book is devoted to this problem.
For the study of basic physical processes in TICs, the most important sections are those on the general physics of low—temperature plasmas (which discuss the mechanisms of plasma creation, the passage of current through a plasma, and the properties of the pre—electrode sheaths) and the sections on physical electronics (which discuss the processes occurring on electrode surfaces and the mechanism of passage of current through a vacuum). This general information about the phenomena of plasmas and electrode surfaces is outlined in the first part of the book (Chapters 2-6).
The methods for investigating the low-temperature plasma of TICs are described in Chapter 7. In the application of these methods to investigations of the TIC, the methods themselves have been developed considerably, both experimentally and theoretically.
The next part of the book (Chapters 8-10) is devoted directly to the investigation of physical processes in TIC plasmas and pre-electrode sheaths that occur in the various converter-operating modes.
During the investigation of thermionic converters, it was possible to span a bridge from the physics of elementary processes to the physics of specific devices. TIC theory now makes it possible, on the basis of known cross sections for fundamental processes, to determine the
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*Self-contained, automatic, unattended
iii
state of the plasma in the interelectrode space and the state of the pre-electrode sheaths, and to calculate the converter current for given external parameters. These calculations can now lay claim not only to qualitative but also to quantitative description of the processes in TICs.
One may hope that these new experimental and theoretical results, outlined in the book, will be of interest not only to specialists directly involved in the development and investigation of thermionic conversion, but also to a wider range of investigators who are specializing in the physics of low-temperature plasmas and in the development of various types of gas-discharge devices.
The status of the development and practical application of the TIC at the time the book was written (the beginning of 1972) is outlined briefly in the last chapter (Chapter 11).
The formulas in the book are numbered consecutively within chapters; the first figure indicates the number of the section. When references are made to the formulas of other chapters, the first figure indicates the number of the chapter and the second indicates the number of the section. The figures and the references are also numbered by chapters, and the references are given at the end of each chapter.
The authors are pleased to express gratitude to R. Ya. Kurcherov, G. A. Lyubimov, Yu. M. Kagan and Ye. Ye. Zhabotinskiy (who read the manuscript completely or partially) for useful advice and comments, and also to their comrades in the investigations, primarily V. B. Kaplan, I. L. Korobov, V. A. Nemchinskiy, G. A. Shakhnazarov and B. I. Tsirkel’, without whose help this book would not have been written.