Transmissivity of electromagnetic wave propagating in magnetized plasma sheath using variational method

A variational method is introduced to analyze the transmissivity of an electromagnetic wave propagating in the magnetized plasma sheath. The plasma density is modeled by two parabolic inhomogeneous regions separated by one homogeneous region. The Lagrangian density of the system is constructed based on the fluid energy density and the electromagnetic energy density.The total variation of the Lagrangian density is derived. The fluid and electromagnetic fields are numerically solved by expansion in piecewise polynomial function space. We investigate the effect of an external magnetic field on the transmissivity of the electromagnetic wave. It is found that the transmissivity is increased when an external magnetic field is applied. The dependence of transmissivity on the collision frequency between the electrons and the neutral particles has also been studied. We also show that the external magnetic field causes a shift in the critical frequency of the plasma sheath.     

Energy dissipation and power deposition of electromagnetic waves in the plasma sheath

Energy dissipation and power deposition of electromagnetic waves(EMW) in the reentry plasma sheath provide an opportunity to investigate ‘communication blackout' phenomena. Based on afinite element method(FEM) simulation, we analyze variation of EMW energy dissipation and power deposition profiles dependent on the wave polarization, wave incident angle, plasma density profile and electron collision frequency. Cutoff and resonance of EMW in the plasma sheath are crucial in explaining the regulation of energy dissipation and power deposition.     

Collision effects on propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves in a sub-wavelength plasma slab of partially ionized dense plasmas

Intensive collisions between electrons and neutral particles in partially ionized plasmas generated in atmospheric/sub-atmospheric pressure environments can sufficiently affect the propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves,particularly in the sub-wavelength regime.To investigate the collisional effect in such plasmas,we introduce a simplified plasma slab model with a thickness on the order of the wavelength of the incident electromagnetic wave.The scattering matrix method (SMM) is applied to solve the wave equation in the plasma slab with significant nonuniformity.Results show that the collisions between the electrons and the neutral particles,as well as the incident angle and the plasma thickness,can disturb the transmission and reduce reflection significantly.     

An electromagnetic wave attenuation superposition structure for thin-layer plasma

This work proposes a new plasma super-phase gradient metasurfaces (PS-PGMs) structure, owing to the limitations of the thin-layer plasma for electromagnetic wave attenuation. Based on the cross-shaped surface unit configuration, we have designed the X-band absorbing structure through the dispersion control method. By setting up the Drude dispersion model in the computer simulation technology, the designed phase gradient metasurfaces structure is superposed over the plasma, and the PS-PGMs structure is constructed. The electromagnetic scattering characteristics of the new structure have been simulated, and the reflectance measurement has been carried out to verify the absorbing effect. The results demonstrate that the attenuation effect of the new structure is superior to that of the pure plasma structure, which invokes an improved attenuation effect from the thin layer plasma, thus enhancing the feasibility of applying the plasma stealth technology to the local stealth of the strong scattering part of a combat aircraft.     

Progress of plasma density fluctuation measurements with phase contrast imaging on HL-2A tokamak

A CO₂ laser-based phase contrast imaging (PCI) diagnostic has been developed on HL-2A tokamak. It can detect line integrated plasma density fluctuations by measuring the phase shift of laser beam after being scattered by the bulk plasma. The diagnosed radial region ranges from \rho \equiv r / a = 0.625 to 0.7. 32-channel HgCdTe detectors with alternative-current biased amplifiers are arranged in line at the imaging plane of the optical path. This PCI is able to diagnose density fluctuations with wavenumbers ranging from 2 cm^-1 to 15 cm^-1 and the time resolution is better than 2 μs. The first experimental data were achieved in 2018 spring campaign of HL-2A tokamak. High performance is confirmed in different discharging configurations and makes it a keen tool in broadband turbulence investigations.     

Frequency dependence of plasma characteristics at different pressures in cylindrical inductively coupled plasma source

The effects of driving frequency on plasma parameters and electron heating efficiency are studied in cylindrical inductively coupled plasma (ICP) source. Measurements are made in an Ar discharge for driving frequency at 13.56/2 MHz, and pressures of 0.4–1.2 Pa. In 13.56 MHz discharge, higher electron density (n_e) and higher electron temperature (T_e) are observed in comparison with 2 MHz discharge at 0.6–1.2 Pa. However, slightly highern_e andT_e are observed in 2 MHz discharge at 0.4 Pa. This observation is explained by enhanced electron heating efficiency due to the resonance between the oscillation of 2 MHz electromagnetic field and electron-neutral collision process at 0.4 Pa. It is also found that the variation ofT_e distribution is different in 13.56 and 2 MHz discharge. For ICP at 13.56 MHz, T_e shows an edge-high profile at 0.4–1.2 Pa. For 2 MHz discharge,T_e remains an edge-high distribution at 0.4–0.8 Pa. However, the distribution pattern involves into a center-high profile at 0.9–1.2 Pa. The spatial profiles ofn_e remain a center-high shape in both 13.56 and 2 MHz discharges, which indicates the nonlocal kinetics at low pressures. Better uniformity could be achieved by using 2 MHz discharge. The effects of gas pressure on plasma parameters are also examined. An increase in gas pressure necessitates the rise ofn_e in both 13.56 and 2 MHz discharges. Meanwhile, T_e drops when gas pressure increases and shows a flatter distribution at higher pressure.     

Analysis of the influence of sheath positions,flight parameters and incident wave parameters on the wave propagation in plasma sheath

The plasma sheath covering hypersonic vehicles has a significant effect on the propagation of electromagnetic waves. Based on the calculation of the flow field of a conical cylindrical, this work studies the propagation of electromagnetic waves in plasma sheath at L-band and Ku-band, and discusses the propagation characteristics in the head, side and tail of the sheath. The dielectric properties of plasma sheath are related to flight speed and altitude. A flight condition corresponds to a unique distribution of dielectric properties. For the conical cylindrical, the results show that flight speed is generally negatively correlated with the transmissivity of the plasma sheath. The reflection characteristics of electromagnetic waves at the L-band and Ku-band when obliquely incident to the plasma sheath show a downward trend. When the frequency is increased to Ku-band, the propagation characteristics of electromagnetic waves in the plasma sheath are related to the position of the sheath.     

Effects of electron temperature on the ion extraction characteristics in a decaying plasma confined between two parallel plates

In this paper, a one-dimension particle-in-cell (PIC) code (EDIPIC) is employed to simulate the parallel-plate ion extraction process under an externally applied electrostatic field, focusing on the analysis of the influence of the initial electron temperature on the extracted ion fluxes to the metal plates during the ion extraction process. Compared with previously published results, the plasma oscillations on a timescale of the electron plasma period, and the excitation of the ion acoustic rarefaction waves resulting from the plasma oscillations originating from both the negative and positive electrodes, are studied for the first time. The modeling results show that both the negative and positive extractors can collect ions due to the plasma oscillations and the propagation of the ion acoustic rarefaction waves. With the increase of the initial electron temperature achieved by keeping other parameters unchanged, on the one hand, both the ion speed and flux to the negative and positive plates increase, which leads to a significant decrease of the ion extraction time, while on the other hand, the ion flux to the positive plate after the formation of a Child–Langmuir sheath is much more sensitive to an increase of the initial electron temperature than that to the negative plate. The PIC simulation results provide a deeper physical understanding of the influence of the initial electron temperature on the characteristics of the entire ion extraction process in a decaying plasma.     

Research on the phase adjustment method for dispersion interferometer on HL-2A tokamak

A synchronous demodulation system is proposed and deployed for CO_2 dispersion interferometer on HL-2 A,which aims at high plasma density measurements and real-time feedback control.In order to make sure that the demodulator and the interferometer signal are synchronous in phase,a phase adjustment(PA) method has been developed for the demodulation system.The method takes advantages of the field programmable gate array parallel and pipeline process capabilities to carry out high performance and low latency PA.Some experimental results presented show that the PA method is crucial to the synchronous demodulation system and reliable to follow the fast change of the electron density.The system can measure the lineintegrated density with a high precision of 2.0?×?10~(18)m~(-2).     

Electromagnetic Wave Attenuation in Atmospheric Pressure Plasma

When an electromagnetic （EM） wave propagates in an atmospheric pressure plasma （APP） layer, its attenuation depends on the APP parameters such as the layer width, the electron density and its profile and collision frequency between electrons and neutrals. This paper proposes that a combined parameter -the product of the line average electron density n and width d of the APP layer （i.e., the total number of electrons in a unit volume along the wave propagation path） can play a more explicit and decisive role in the wave attenuation than any of the above individual parameters does. The attenuation of the EM wave via the product of n and d with various collision frequencies between electrons and neutrals is presented.     

Experiment on low-frequency electromagnetic waves propagating in shock-tube-generated magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma

We propose a method of applying a static magnetic field to reduce the attenuation of the magnetic field component(S_H) of low-frequency electromagnetic(LF EM) waves in dense plasma. The principle of this method is to apply a static magnetic field to limit electron movement, thereby increasing the equivalent resistance and thus reducing the induced current and S_H. We consider the static magnetic field acting on the plasma of the entire induced current loop rather than on the local plasma, where the induced current is excited by the magnetic field component of LF EM waves. Analytical expressions of S_H suitable for magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma are derived by adopting an equivalent circuit approach, by which S_His calculated with respect to various plasma parameter settings. The results show that S_H can be reduced under a static magnetic field and the maximum magnetic field strength that mitigates blackout is less than 0.1 T. Experiments in which LF EM waves propagate in a shock-tubegenerated magnetized cylindrical enveloping plasma are also conducted. S_H measured under the magnetic field(the magnetic field strength B0 acting on the magnetic field probe was about0.06 T) reduces at f=10 MHz and f=30 MHz when n_e≈1.9×10~(13) cm~(-3), which is consistent with theoretical results. The verification of the theory thus suggests that applying a static magnetic field with a weak magnetic field has the potential to improve the transmission capacity of LF EM waves in dense plasma.     

Study on plasma sheath and plasma transport properties in the azimuthator

A physical model of transport in an azimuthator channel with the sheath effect resulting from the interaction between the plasma and insulation wall is established in this paper.Particle in cell simulation is carded out by the model and results show that,besides the transport due to classical and Bohm diffusions,the sheath effect can significantly influences the transport in the channel.As a result,the ion density is larger than the electron density at the exit of azimuthator,and the non-neutral plasma jet is divergent,which is unfavorable for mass separation.Then,in order to improve performance of the azimuthator,a cathode is designed to emit electrons.Experiment results have demonstrated that the auxiliary cathode can obviously compensate the space charge in the plasma.     

Research on the method of dual-frequency microwave diagnosis of plasma for solving phase integer ambiguity

In this work,microwaves and terahertz waves have performed a dual-frequency combineddiagnosis in high-temperature,large-scale plasma.According to the attenuation and phase shift of electromagnetic waves in the plasma,the electron density and collision frequency of theplasma can be inversely calculated.However,when the plasma size is large and the electron density is high,the phase shift of the electromagnetic wave is large (multiple times 2π period).Due to the limitations of the test equipment,the true phase shift is difficult to test accurately or to recover reality.That is,there is a problem of phase integer ambiguity.In order to obtain a phase shift of less than 180°,a higher electromagnetic wave frequency (terahertz wave with 890 GHz)is used for diagnosis.However,the attenuation of the terahertz wave diagnosis is too small (less than 0.1 d B),only the electron density can be obtained,and the collision frequency cannot be accurately obtained.Therefore,a combined diagnosis was carried out by combining twofrequencies (microwave with 36 GHz,terahertz wave with 890 GHz) to obtain electron density and collision frequency.The diagnosis result shows that the electron density is in the range of(0.65–1.5)×10~(19)m~(-3),the collision frequency is in the range of 0.65–2 GHz,and the diagnostic accuracy is about 60%.     

Estimation of plasma parameters in the process of micro-scale powder plastic and characteristics of its products

The temperature and density of plasma jets were estimated with a Boltzmann plot and Stark broadening of Ar I (696.54 nm) lines by optical emission spectroscopy (OES) in the process of plasma plastic, and the morphology and microstructure of tungsten (W) powders were investigated by scanning electron microscope (SEM) and x-ray Diffraction (XRD), respectively. The results show that the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) was invalid at the end of the plasma jets, and earlier than this after the injection of tungsten powder. The temperature and electron density of the plasma jets were up to about T=6797 K with Q_c=50 slpm and n_e=1.05×10¹⁶ cm⁻³ with Q_s=115 slpm at Z=60 mm, respectively, and both dropped rapidly with the injected tungsten powders of 20 μm. After the plasma plastic process, the spherical tungsten powders were prepared and there were some satellite particles on the surface of the spherical products. The tungsten powders were both composed of a single equilibrium α-W phase with a body centered cubic (bbc) crystal structure before and after plasma treatment.     

Influence of Plasma Pressure Fluctuation on RF Wave Propagation

Pressure fluctuations in the plasma sheath from spacecraft reentry affect radiofrequency(RF) wave propagation.The influence of these fluctuations on wave propagation and wave properties is studied using methods derived by synthesizing the compressible turbulent flow theory,plasma theory,and electromagnetic wave theory.We study these influences on wave propagation at GPS and Ka frequencies during typical reentry by adopting stratified modeling.We analyzed the variations in reflection and transmission properties induced by pressure fluctuations.Our results show that,at the GPS frequency,if the waves are not totally reflected then the pressure fluctuations can remarkably affect reflection,transmission,and absorption properties.In extreme situations,the fluctuations can even cause blackout.At the Ka frequency,the influences are obvious when the waves are not totally transmitted.The influences are more pronounced at the GPS frequency than at the Ka frequency.This suggests that the latter can mitigate blackout by reducing both the reflection and the absorption of waves,as well as the influences of plasma fluctuations on wave propagation.Given that communication links with the reentry vehicles are susceptible to plasma pressure fluctuations,the influences on link budgets should be taken into consideration.     

Investigations on the time evolution of the plasma density in argon electron-beam plasma at intermediate pressure

The time evolution of the argon electron-beam plasma at intermediate pressure and low electron beam intensity was presented.By applying the amplitude modulation with the frequency of 20 Hz on the stable beam current,the plasma evolution was studied.A Faraday cup was used for the measurement of the electron beam current and a single electrostatic probe was used for the measurement of the ion current.Experimental results indicated that the ion current was in phase with the electron beam current in the pressure range from 200 Pa to 3000 Pa and in the beam current range lower than 20 mA,the residual density increased approximately linearly with the maximum density in the log-log plot and the fitting coefficient was irrelative to the pressure.And then three kinds of kinetic models were developed and the simulated results given by the kinetic model,without the consideration of the excited atoms,mostly approached to the experimental results.This indicated that the effect of the excited atoms on the plasma density can be ignored at intermediate pressure and low electron beam current intensity,which can greatly simplify the kinetic model.In the end,the decrease of the plasma density when the beam current was suddenly off was studied based on the simplified model and it was found that the decease characteristic at intermediate pressure was approximate to the one at high pressure at low electron beam intensity,which was in good accordance with the experimental results.     

Time-resolved evaluation of uranium plasma in different atmospheres by laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy

This work reports spectroscopic studies of uranium containing plasma generated in air and argon environments. The 532 nm Q-switched Nd:YAG laser generates the optical breakdown plasma, which was recorded by a spectrometer and an intensified charge coupled device having a resolution of 25 pm. Neutral and ionized uranium lines in the wavelength range of 385.8–391.9 nm indicate significant width and shift variations during the first few microseconds. Electron temperature and density of the plasma are determined using the Boltzmann plot and the Saha–Boltzmann equation at various time delay. The study reveals the power law decay pattern of electron temperature and density, which changes to exponential decay pattern if large gate- width is used to acquire the signal, due to an averaging effect.     

Spatio-temporal evaluation of Zr plasma parameters in a single-beam-splitting double-pulse laser-induced plasma

The plasma shielding effect is one of the major weaknesses of laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy(LIBS) as it causes non-linearity in signal strength. Although LIBS is typically carried out in constant laser energy, this non-linearity causes a reduction in sensitivity. In this work, we systematically examine laser-induced plasma, formed by two different excitation source modes, i.e. single pulse(SP)-excitation and single-beam-splitting double-pulse(SBSDP)-excitation over Zr-2.5% Nb alloy. The two most important plasma parameters influencing the emission line intensity, plasma temperature(T_e) and electron density(N_e) were studied and compared for both modes of laser excitation. Comparison of the results conclusively demonstrates that due to the splitting of the laser energy in the SBS-DP mode, the plasma shielding effect is significantly reduced. The reduced plasma shielding translates to an increased laser–sample coupling under SBS-DP mode. Temporal imaging of the total intensity of the laserinduced plasma in both excitation modes was also studied. The study shows how the plasma shielding effect can be reduced to improve the analytical quality of the LIBS methodology.     

Study of electron-extraction characteristics of an inductively coupled radio-frequency plasma neutralizer

Inductively coupled radio-frequency (RF) plasma neutralizer (RPN) is an insert-free device that can be employed as an electron source in electric propulsion applications.Electron-extraction characteristics of the RPN are related to the bulk plasma parameters and the device's geometry.Therefore,the effects of different electron-extraction apertures and operational parameters upon the electron-extraction characteristics are investigated according to the global nonambipolar flow and sheath model.Moreover,these models can also be used to explain why the electron-extraction characteristics of the RPN strongly depend upon the formation of the anode spot.During the experimental study,two types of anode spots are observed.Each of them has unique characteristics of electron extraction.Moreover,the hysteresis of an anode spot is observed by changing the xenon volume-flow rates or the bias voltages.In addition,the rapid ignited method,gas-utilization factor,electron-extraction cost and other factors that need to be considered in the design of the RPN are also discussed.     

The Oblique Incident Effects of Electromagnetic Wave in Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Layers

The propagating behaviours, i.e. phase shift, transmissivity, reflectivity and absorp- tivity, of an electromagnetic （EM） wave in a two-dimensional atmospheric pressure plasma layer are described by the numerical solutions of integral-differential Maxwell＇s equations through a generalized finite-difference-time-domain （FDTD） algorithm. These propagating behaviours are found to be strongly affected by five factors： two EM wave characteristics relevant to the oblique incident and three dimensionless factors. The two EM wave factors are the polarization mode （TM mode or TE mode） and its incident angle. The three dimensionless factors are： the ratio of the maximum electron density to the critical density no/nor, the ratio of the plasma layer width to the wave length d/λ, and the ratio of the collision frequency between electrons and neutrals to the incident wave frequency veo/f.