Target plasma formation by UHF power

Abstract

The properties of plasma injected into an open magnetic trap of uniform field from an independent UHF source have been investigated. Plasma is created in the UHF source at the frequency of 2400 MHz (power input 150 W) in the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) regime at the pressure of neutral argon (10−5−10−2) torr. It is established that a rather quiescent target plasma with controlled density within the range of (2 × 108−2 × 1012) cm−3 and temperature 2–3eV is accumulated in the trap. It turned out that plasma lifetime in the trap is determined by a classical mechanism of particle escape at the expense of collisions, at fixed value of magnetic field in the trap it practically is not changed with the variation of neutral gas pressure and reaches the value ≈ 4×10−3 s at the magnetic field strength in the trap equal 1600 Oe.