Significantly reduced secondary electron emission from silver/carbon composite films for microwave devices

The micro-discharge effect is a failure mechanism that often appeared in space microwave devices under vacuum conditions, such as RF (radio frequency) cavity, RF satellite missile, and antenna launching communication system. How to control micro-discharge effectively and simply has become a research hotspot. In this paper, we have prepared a series of doping silver (Ag)/carbon (C) composite films by double target magnetron sputtering technology and have significantly reduced the maximum secondary electron emission coefficient (delta(max)) from 2.522 to 1.04 when the doping ratio of Ag/C is 1.345. Theoretically, the continuous increase of sp(2) hybrid bond content tuned by the existing Ag nanoparticles has a greater contribution to the conductivity and inhibition of secondary electron emission in the Ag/C composite films. Meanwhile, the gradually emerged "multi-trap " surface structure with the increase of Ag doping content has further increased the collision between excited secondary electrons and free electrons, achieving an obvious inhibition effect. The results demonstrate that secondary electron emission can be suppressed effectively by tuning the structural feature of two kinds of compounded materials with low delta(max). It is of great significance in physical mechanism analysis and design of the new doping process. Published under an exclusive license by AIP Publishing.