Estudio de las características de propagación de un plasma pulsado generado en un acelerador coaxial

Abstract

The propagation and expansion of the plasma produced by a coaxial plasma gun is evaluated simultaneously using a laser beam deflection technique and a Langmuir double probe. The first method is very sensitive to the time and space dependent gradients produced by the pulsed plasma, and it is applied to measure the resulting beam deflection over a He-Ne laser beam that is placed perpendicular to the propagation axis. The system with a quadrature detector has a rise time response of 10 ns and a resolution of 2 $\mu$rad. The Langmuir double probe is used along the axis and allows us to measure the time of flight under diverse plasmas conditions. We present comparative measurements for Nitrogen and Helium background gases from 50 to 500 mTorr, in a 50 cm long and 10 cm diameter chamber.