Pure ion current collection in ion sensitive probe measurement with a metal mesh guard electrode for evaluation of ion temperature in magnetized plasma.

This paper presents a new design of ion sensitive probe (ISP) that enables collection of pure ion current for accurate measurement of the perpendicular ion temperature in magnetized plasmas. The new type of ISP resolves a longstanding issue widely observed in ISP type measurements, namely, that the current-voltage characteristic is smeared by an unexpected electron current in the standard ISP model. The new ISP is equipped with a fine scale metal mesh on the sensor entrance to prevent electrons from flowing to the sensor, a phenomenon considered to be caused by the space-charge effect. The new ISP successfully measured the ion temperature of electron cyclotron resonance plasmas.

Experimental identification of electromagnetically induced transparency in magnetized plasma.

We report the first experimental identification of the new wave branch at electron cyclotron frequency produced by the injection of a frequency-matched intense pump wave in magnetized plasma [A. G. Litvak and M. D. Tokman, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 095003 (2002); G. Shvets and J. S. Wurtele, Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 115003 (2002)], which is a classical phenomenon analogous to electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in quantum systems. By using a frequency-sweep interferometer, we directly detected the dispersion relation of the plasma EIT branch for propagation parallel to the background magnetic field. The bandwidth of the EIT window was correlated with the pump-wave electric field and was found to agree with the theoretical prediction.

Lithium plasma emitter for collisionless magnetized plasma experiment.

This paper presents a newly developed lithium plasma emitter, which can provide quiescent and low-temperature collisionless conditions for magnetized plasma experiments. This plasma emitter generates thermal emissions of lithium ions and electrons to produce a lithium plasma. Lithium type beta-eucryptite and lanthanum-hexaboride (LaB(6)) powders were mixed and directly heated with a tungsten heater to synthesize ion and electron emissions. As a result, a plasma with a diameter of ~15 cm was obtained in a magnetic mirror configuration. The typical range of electron density was 10(12)-10(13) m(-3) and that of electron temperature was 0.1-0.8 eV with the emitter operation temperature of about 1500 K. The amplitude fluctuations for the plasma density were lower than 1%.