Optical Probes of Ultracold Neutral Plasmas

Journal Article · Thu Aug 02 04:00:00 EDT 2007 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2768834· OSTI ID:21064170

Laha, S; Castro, J; Gao, H; Gupta, P; Simien, C E; Killian, T C ^[1]

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1. Rice University, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Houston, Texas, 77005 (United States)

We describe the optical diagnostics used to study ultracold neutral plasmas. Imaging and spectroscopy based on both ion absorption and fluorescence provide accurate measurements of ion kinetic energy, plasma size, and the number of ions in the plasma. Absorption measurements yield lower signal-to-noise ratios because they are highly sensitive to laser intensity fluctuations, but the resulting measurement of the number of ions requires no external calibration. Fluorescence measurements of ion number must be calibrated with absorption measurements, but the measurements are less sensitive to technical noise sources. Spatially resolved fluorescence measurements also have the advantage of separating ion kinetic energy due to expansion from thermal kinetic energy.

• OSTI ID: 21064170
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Journal Name: AIP Conference Proceedings Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 926; ISSN APCPCS; ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
ABSORPTION SPECTROSCOPY
CALIBRATION
FLUCTUATIONS
FLUORESCENCE SPECTROSCOPY
IONS
KINETIC ENERGY
LASER RADIATION
NOISE
PLASMA
PLASMA BEAM INJECTION
PLASMA DIAGNOSTICS
SIGNAL-TO-NOISE RATIO