Aachen PK 2003 – scientific programme

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P: Plasmaphysik

P 17: Poster III

P 17.12: Poster

Thursday, March 20, 2003, 17:30–19:15, Foyer

Ion Current and Plasma Behavior in a Crossed Electrical and Magnetic Fields — •Igor Levchenko, Maxim Romanov, Oleg Baranov, and Konstantin Mustafin — Kharkov National Aerospace University, Kharkov, Ukraine

Ion current in a system with crossed magnetic and electrical fields without special plasma sources have been investigated. It was found that the ion current to the target has non-monotonic behavior. In case of 0.035 T magnetic field, the current reaches a maximum of about 150 amperes per square meter at bias voltage of about 1 kV. These results are explained in terms of ionization by magnetized electrons in E-B system. Our findings suggest that the system with crossed fields can be used for intense plasma immersed processing. The plasma behavior in this system has some unusual feature, that consists in a narrow plasma disk formation when the magnetic field exceeds a value of 0.15 - 0.2 T. The probes showed that the plasma potential on the disk center of symmetry does not change but the spatial distribution changes. The distribution of ion current was measured with a help of sliding rings. Measurements show that the current has a strong drop when plasma contracts into disk. The time-resolved measurements also show very sharp transition. Explanation was proposed on the basis of plasma behavior analysis in crossed field system with slightly distorted fields.