Plasma potential measurements using an emissive probe made of oxide cathode

A novel emissive probe consisting of an oxide cathode coating is developed to achieve a low operating temperature and long service life.The properties of the novel emissive probe are investigated in detail,in comparison with a traditional tungsten emissive probe,including the operating temperature,the electron emission capability and the plasma potential measurement.Studies of the operating temperature and electron emission capability show that the tungsten emissive probe usually works at a temperature of 1800 K-2200 K while the oxide cathode emissive probe can function at about 1200 K-1400 K.In addition,plasma potential measurements using the oxide cathode emissive probe with different techniques have been accomplished in microwave electron cyclotron resonance plasmas with different discharge powers.It is found that a reliable plasma potential can be obtained using the improved inflection point method and the hot probe with zero emission limit method,while the floating point method is invalid for the oxide cathode emissive probe.

Interactions of ion acoustic multi-soliton and rogue wave with Bohm quantum potential in degenerate plasma

This work investigates the interactions among solitons and their consequences in the production of rogue waves in an unmagnetized plasmas composing non-relativistic as well as relativistic degenerate electrons and positrons, and inertial non-relativistic helium ions. The extended Poincare′–Lighthill–Kuo（PLK） method is employed to derive the two-sided Korteweg–de Vries（KdV） equations with their corresponding phase shifts. The nonlinear Schrodinger equation（NLSE） is obtained from the modified Kd V（mKdV） equation, which allows one to study the properties of the rogue waves. It is found that the Fermi temperature and quantum mechanical effects become pronounced due to the quantum diffraction of electrons and positrons in the plasmas. The densities and temperatures of the helium ions, degenerate electrons and positrons, and quantum parameters strongly modify the electrostatic ion acoustic resonances and their corresponding phase shifts due to the interactions among solitons and produce rogue waves in the plasma.

Study of axial double layer in helicon plasma by optical emission spectroscopy and simple probe

In this work we used a passive measurement method based on a high-impedance electrostatic probe and an optical emission spectroscope （OES） to investigate the characteristics of the double layer （DL） in an argon helicon plasma. The DL can be confirmed by a rapid change in the plasma potential along the axis. The axial potential variation of the passive measurement shows that the DL forms near a region of strong magnetic field gradient when the plasma is operated in wave- coupled mode, and the DL strength increases at higher powers in this experiment. The emission intensity of the argon atom line, which is strongly dependent on the metastable atom concentration, shows a similar spatial distribution to the plasma potential along the axis. The emission intensity of the argon atom line and the argon ion line in the DL suggests the existence of an energetic electron population upstream of the DL. The electron density upstream is much higher than that downstream, which is mainly caused by these energetic electrons.

Steady and oscillatory plasma properties in the near-field plume of a hollow cathode

Hollow cathodes serve as electron sources in Hall thrusters,ion thrusters and other electric propulsion systems.One of the vital problems in their application is the cathode erosion.However,the basic erosion mechanism and the source of high-energy ions cause of erosion are not fully understood.In this paper,both potential measurements and simulation analyses were performed to explain the formation of high-energy ions.A high-speed camera,a single Langmuir probe and a floating emissive probe were used to determine the steady and oscillatory plasma properties in the near-field plume of a hollow cathode.The temporal structure,electron temperature,electron density,and both static and oscillation of plasma potentials of the plume have been obtained by the diagnostics mentioned above.The experimental results show that there exists a potential hill（about 30 V） and also severe potential oscillations in the near-plume region.Moreover,a simple 2 D particle-in-cell model was used to analyze the energy transition between the potential hill and/or its oscillations and the ions.The simulation results show that the energy of ions gained from the static potential background is about 20 e V,but it could reach to 60 e V when the plasma oscillates.