Townsendn.

1902 London, Edinb. & Dublin Philos. Mag. 6th Ser. 4 41 I think it is probable some additional ionization due to the Townsend effect has come in to make α_p too large.

1956 Nature 25 Feb. 391/1 The possibility of using the Townsend electron avalanche process in a gas in a stage-by-stage system to give a highly stable electron-multiplication factor.

1968 H. A. Romanowitz & R. E. Puckett Introd. to Electronics xiv. 563 As the voltage is increased from zero, the dark current (called Townsend current..) increases slowly until the voltage approaches that at which the tube operates with a glow discharge.

1982 Nature 28 Oct. 774/1 The main agents of discharges are electrons that participate in Townsend avalanches.

2006 Jrnl. Electrostatics 64 370/2 The plasmas are maintained by the Townsend field.

1928 Science 14 Dec. 602/2 The electrons leaving the cathode ionize by collision as in a Townsend discharge to yield a large positive ion current flowing to the cathode.

1978 J. H. Ingold in M. N. Hirsh & H. J. Oskam Gaseous Electronics I. ii. 23 At extremely low currents, on the order of microamperes and less, the discharge is a Townsend discharge, with little or no visible light emanating from the discharge tube.

2008 Nature 23 Oct. 1090/2 For a Townsend discharge, the bottleneck is the time it takes an ion to cross a gap of length l times the number of round trips..needed to build up an avalanche.