Corona discharge the electron-liberation is a high-energy photon from an atom within the plasma body relaxing after excitation from an earlier collision. The use of ionized neutral gas as a source of ionization is further diminished in a negative corona by the high-concentration of positive ions clustering around the curved electrode. Under other conditions, the collision of the positive species with the curved electrode can also cause electron liberation. The difference, then, between positive and negative coronas, in the matter of the generation of secondary electron avalanches, is that in a positive corona they are generated by the gas surrounding the plasma
Cathode the discharge. Cold cathodes may also emit electrons by photoelectric emission. These are often called "photocathodes" and are used in phototubes used in scientific instruments and image intensifier tubes used in night vision goggles. In a semiconductor diode, the cathode is the N–doped layer of the PN junction with a high density of free electrons due to doping, and an equal density of fixed positive charges, which are the dopants that have been thermally ionized. In the anode, the converse applies: It features a high density of free "holes" and consequently fixed negative dopants which have captured an electron (hence