Collisional damping of helicon waves in a high density hydrogen linear plasma device

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the propagation and damping of helicon waves along the length (50 cm) of a helicon-produced 20 kW hydrogen plasma ( 1–2 1019 m−3, 1–6 eV, H2 8 mTorr) operated in a magnetic mirror configuration (antenna region: 50–200 G and mirror region: 800 G). Experimental results show the presence of traveling helicon waves (4–8 G and 10–15 cm) propagating away from the antenna region which become collisionally absorbed within 40–50 cm. We describe the use of the WKB method to calculate wave damping and provide an expression to assess its validity based on experimental measurements. Theoretical calculations are consistent with experiment and indicate that for conditions where Coulomb collisions are dominant classical collisionality is sufficient to explain the observed wave damping along the length of the plasma column. Based on these results, we provide an expression for the scaling of helicon wave damping relevant to high density discharges and discuss the location of surfaces for plasma-material interaction studies in helicon based linear plasma devices.