Antenna coupling and absorption mechanisms in a helicon source operation

Conference · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1996

OSTI ID:419665

Mouzouris, Y; Scharer, J E; Bettenhausen, M ^[1]

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1. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering

The ANTENAII computer code, a modified version of the ANTENA code written by McVey, is used to study and model helicon sources. A drifting beam with a small Maxwellian spread characterizing the fast electrons along with the bulk Maxwellian electron distribution comparable to what has been observed experimentally has been added to the code to examine their influence on helicon wave power absorption. The authors have studied the effects of electron cyclotron damping on power absorption that can occur at low magnetic fields (B {approx} 1 {minus} 50 G). The contribution of the off-diagonal hot plasma dielectric tensor terms and that of the transit-time damping to the power dissipated is also examined. They examine different helicon antenna structures and describe the relative processes of wave absorption by collisional, Landau, transit-time and cyclotron damping for a wide range of parameters. Preliminary studies of plasma transport as well as radial plasma uniformity in helicon sources are presented with the aid of the interface of the ANTENAII code with the 2-D fluid transport model, INDUCT95, developed by Vittelo et al.

• Sponsoring Organization: Wisconsin Univ., Madison, WI (United States)
• OSTI ID: 419665
• Report Number(s): CONF-960634--
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

66 PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
ENERGY ABSORPTION
ENERGY LOSSES
HELICON WAVES
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA PRODUCTION
PLASMA SIMULATION