Marginal stability and critical thickness of strong double layers

Abstract

Previous investigations of the stability, in particular the critical thickness for marginal stability, of an electron configuration of double-layer type are extended in order to include effects of (i) unequal plasma densities in the field-free regions, and (ii) finite values of the parameter eΔø/kTe. The results obtained are compared with the corresponding quantities in various experiments, and a striking coincidence is found.