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Digital smoothing of the Langmuir probe I-V characteristic

Journal Article · · Review of Scientific Instruments
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.2956970· OSTI ID:21124038
 [1];  [1]
  1. Science Institute, University of Iceland, Dunhaga 3, IS-107 Reykjavk (Iceland)

Electrostatic probes or Langmuir probes are the most common diagnostic tools in plasma discharges. The second derivative of the Langmuir probe I-V characteristic is proportional to the electron energy distribution function. Determining the second derivative accurately requires some method of noise suppression. We compare the Savitzky-Golay filter, the Gaussian filter, and polynomial fitting to the Blackman filter for digitally smoothing simulated and measured I-V characteristics. We find that the Blackman filter achieves the most smoothing with minimal distortion for noisy data.

OSTI ID:
21124038
Journal Information:
Review of Scientific Instruments, Journal Name: Review of Scientific Instruments Journal Issue: 7 Vol. 79; ISSN 0034-6748; ISSN RSINAK
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English