Adverse shielding of the heating field and high ohmic loss introduced by electrostatic shields employed in radio-frequency heating of plasma

Abstract

The electrostatic shields now commonly employed to shield antennas in the heating of plasma in the ion cyclotron frequency range are shown to reduce the specific radiation resistance of a long narrow antenna in the presence of plasma by a significant factor (on the order of 2/3 for a typical double-array shield) due to the effect of magnetic shielding of the magnetosonic polarization. An allied change in antenna specific inductance is also found. These effects are shown to diminish with increase in antenna width and should pose no major problem for the wide antennas projected for use in fusion experiments. In addition to the foregoing effects which are not ohmically dissipative in essence, electrostatic shields are also shown to introduce surprisingly high ohmic loss, this being of potential importance in shield design. The dependences of the above magnetic and ohmic phenomena on shield parameters are given and a shield design minimizing them is presented. Their repercussion on coupling efficiency and on the excitation voltage necessary for a given power flux from the antenna is discussed.