Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Ion temperature measurement in a flowing collisionless plasma using an end effect of cylindrical langmuir probes. Interim report

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:7115645
An experimental verification of the end effect theory of long cylindrical Langmuir probes in a high-speed collisionless plasma flow is reported. This effect is observed as a sharp departure from the predicted infinite probe current when a strongly negative probe is aligned with the flow. Both the height and the width of the ion current peak measured about the zero-degree attitude are strongly sensitive to ion temperature. The effect is verified for a mesothermal argon plasma with probe radius to Debye length ratio 0.005 < epsilon < 0.5 and for ion to electron temperature ratios close to unity.
Research Organization:
Toronto Univ., Ontario (Canada). Inst. for Aerospace Studies
OSTI ID:
7115645
Report Number(s):
AD-A-033836; UTIAS-202
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English