Matched dipole probe for magnetized low electron density laboratory plasma diagnostics

Journal Article · Wed Jul 15 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4926447· OSTI ID:22490989

Rafalskyi, Dmytro; Aanesland, Ane ^[1]

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1. Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas (CNRS, Ecole Polytechnique, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, Univ Paris-Sud), Ecole Polytechnique, 91128 Palaiseau (France)

In this paper, a diagnostic method for magnetized and unmagnetized laboratory plasma is proposed, based on impedance measurements of a short matched dipole. The range of the measured electron densities is limited to low density plasmas (10{sup 12}–10{sup 15 }m{sup −3}), where other diagnostic methods have strong limitations on the magnetic field strength and topology, plasma dimensions, and boundary conditions. The method is designed for use in both large- and small-dimension plasma (<10 cm) without or with strong non-homogeneous magnetic field, which can be undefined within the probe size. The design of a matched dipole probe allows to suppress the sheath resonance effects and to reach high sensitivity at relatively small probe dimensions. Validation experiments are conducted in both magnetized (B ∼ 170 G) and unmagnetized (B = 0) low density (7 × 10{sup 12 }m{sup −3}–7 × 10{sup 13 }m{sup −3}) low pressure (1 mTorr) 10 cm scale plasmas. The experimentally measured data show very good agreement with an analytical theory both for a non-magnetized and a magnetized case. The electron density measured by the matched dipole and Langmuir probes in the range of 7 × 10{sup 12 }m{sup −3}–7 × 10{sup 13 }m{sup −3} show less than 30% difference. An experimentally measured tolerance/uncertainty of the dipole probe method is estimated to ±1% for plasma densities above 2 × 10{sup 13 }m{sup −3}. A spatial resolution is estimated from the experiments to be about 3d, where d is the dipole diameter. The diagnostic method is also validated by comparing the measured plasma impedance curves with results of analytical modelling.

• OSTI ID: 22490989
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 22, Issue 7; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ANALYTIC FUNCTIONS
BOUNDARY CONDITIONS
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DIPOLES
ELECTRON DENSITY
EXPERIMENT RESULTS
LANGMUIR PROBE
MAGNETIC FIELDS
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA DIAGNOSTICS
PLASMA SHEATH
PRESSURE RANGE KILO PA
RESONANCE
SENSITIVITY
SPATIAL RESOLUTION
TOLERANCE
TOPOLOGY