Experimental analysis of the particle transport in the magnetized plasma column with an application to the helicon discharge

Abstract

International audienceDifferent transport mechanisms in a magnetized radio frequency plasmadischarge in the IShTAR device are compared. The total cross fieldparticle transport systematically shows the best agreement with theturbulent diffusion. Also, the ion mobility dominated transport couldsubstantially contribute to radial losses. The relative role of paralleland perpendicular losses in the overall particle confinement is alsocompared. The total perpendicular particle losses are comparable or evenlarger than the parallel ones, imposing a practical limitation onachieving high density plasma simply combining several helicon antennaesequentially arranged along the glass tube. For the same reason,reducing the diameter of a source tube, in an attempt to achieve ahigher plasma density, could be not very efficient when perpendicularparticle loss is dominant