Temperature profile measurement of graphite material using a CO2 laser

Abstract

Emissive probes have been used for the direct measurement of plasma potential in many plasma devices and different approaches have been introduced to measure plasma potential using emissive probes. But the biggest disadvantage of the emissive probe is its short lifespan due to its self-arrangement and different plasma environment. For example, filament emissive probes cannot be used in high-temperature plasma devices. A few initiatives have begun to measure the plasma potential by using a laser-heated emissive probe. In these cases, mostly graphite and LaB6 are being used as a probe tip to emit electrons by heating them with a laser light. However, very few studies aiming to understand the mechanism of the heating process of the graphite material have been performed. The heating dynamics of the graphite material heated by a CW CO2 laser with a maximum power of 30 W have been investigated in this study. The in situ temperature of the probe tip has been measured by using an infrared camera. Complete theoretical and simulation models have been developed to understand the experimentally measured data. Further, the experimental results are compared with ANSYS simulations.