Hysteresis and self-sustained oscillations in space charge limited currents

A problem of charged particle flow between parallel plate electrodes with arbitrary injection velocities is revisited. A steady-state analysis is advanced by the kinetic simulations which show that the system under consideration can exhibit features characteristic of nonlinear dynamical systems. In particular, a hysteresis between supply limited and space charge limited currents is demonstrated as well as the existence of self-sustained oscillations in the space charge limited regime. These phenomena are most sharply pronounced for narrow distributions of the initial injection energies. (C) 1998 American Institute of Physics.