No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

In a low-temperature, low-pressure cesium plasma environment, special conditions have been found which exhibit unidirectional conduction of a current over a physical interelectrode space of a size up to 1 mm between two plane parallel electrodes. The spacing is determined by the need to maintain a high enough cesium pressure in the present setup. The cesium emitter has a temperature of 800 K or lower. Current densities of 100–200 A cm−2 during steady state and up to 500 A cm−2 under non-steady-state conditions are reported. The experiments give a semiconducting resistivity between the electrodes as low as 10−3 Ω m, usually around 10−2 Ω m. The special plasma conditions are probably due to excited states of cesium atoms, which condense to form an excited state of matter. Such a type of matter has been predicted to exist on theoretical grounds by Manykin et al. and was stated to have metallic electrons. We propose that the conduction observed involves electron transfer from the cold electrode, through the excited matter on the surface of this electrode and through a very thin plasma gap to the hot foil electrode.