Measurements of the impressed electric field inside a coaxial electron cyclotron resonance plasma source

Abstract

The magnitude and spatial variation of the impressed electric-field patterns inside a compact electron cyclotron resonance ion/plasma source are experimentally measured for argon and nitrogen feed gases. This ECR plasma source consists of several components: a resonant coaxial coupling section, an evanescent circular waveguide section, coupling loop, and the ECR discharge load itself. The electric fields inside the coaxial and circular waveguide sections are measured as the operating pressure and input power and are varied from 0.2 to 2.0 mTorr and 100 to 170 W, respectively. The measured fields verify that a standing wave with a maximum of 20–40 kV/m exists inside the coaxial section of length l. For matched conditions the length of this section varies only slightly between 0.6 and 0.7λ as pressure, power, and gas type vary. However, the evanescent impedance-matching circular waveguide section of length d changes from 2.5 for argon to 3.2 cm for nitrogen, indicating that the gas type influences the plasma impedance. Field pattern measurements in the ECR section of the source demonstrate the presence of nonevanescent fields in the discharge region. Measured plasma loaded and unloaded quality factors varied from 220 to 1800, respectively, indicating that 87% of the net input power is coupled into the discharge load. Additional calculations of conductive wall losses show that about 6% of the input power is lost in the cavity walls, and the remaining 7% is lost in the coupling loop.