Particle-in-Cell Modeling of Laser Thomson Scattering in Low-Density Plasmas at Elevated Laser Intensities
Incoherent Thomson scattering is a non-intrusive technique commonly used for measuring local plasma density. Within low-density, low-temperature plasma's and for sufficient laser intensity, the laser may perturb the local electron density via the ponderomotive force, causing the diagnostic to become intrusive and leading to erroneous results. A theoretical model for this effect is validated numerically via kinetic simulations of a quasi-neutral plasma using the Particle-in-Cell technique.
Plasma diagnostics by optical emission spectroscopy on argon and comparison with Thomson scattering
A novel optical emission spectroscopy (OES) technique for the determination of electron temperatures and densities in low-pressure argon discharges is compared with Thomson scattering (TS). The emission spectroscopy technique is based on the measurement of certain line ratios in argon and a collisional–radiative model (CRM) including metastable transport. The investigations are carried out in a planar inductively coupled neutral loop discharge (NLD) over a wide range of pressures, p = 0.05 Pa–5 Pa. This discharge is a weakly magnetized novel radio-frequency (rf) plasma source, proposed for plasma etching. The NLD is operated in pure argon at a frequency of f = 13.56 MHz and powers varied between P = 1 kW and 2 kW. Both diagnostics, OES and TS, are applied in parallel. The electron energy distribution functions obtained by TS are clearly Maxwellian at low pressures but exhibit a certain enhancement of the energetic tail at higher pressures. Electron densities and temperatures obtained by both diagnostic techniques are compared. Further, absolute numbers of the metastable densities derived from the measurement by the CRM are compared with earlier measurements under similar conditions. Excellent agreement is found throughout if depletion of the neutral gas density by increasing gas temperature and electron pressure is included in the CRM. Electron pressure is the dominant depletion mechanism at gas pressures p ⩽ 0.1 Pa and rf powers P > 1 kW. There, the electron pressure exceeds more than 3 times the neutral pressure and the ionization degree approaches 7% while at pressures p > 1 Pa the degree of ionization is relatively low (<10−3) and neutral gas depletion is dominated by gas heating.
Proposed beam diagnostics instrumentation for the LANSCE refurbishment project
Presently, the Los Alamos National Laboratory is in the process of planning a refurbishment of various subsystems within its Los Alamos Neutron Science Center accelerator facility. A part of this LANSCE facility refurbishment will include some replacement of and improvement to existing older beam-diagnostics instrumentation. While plans are still being discussed, some instrumentation that is under improvement or replacement consideration are beam phase and position measurements within the 805-MHz side-coupled cavity linac, slow wire profile measurements, typically known as wire scanners, and possibly additional installation of fast ionization-chamber loss monitors. This paper will briefly describe the requirements for these beam measurements, what we have done thus far to answer these requirements, and some of the technical issues related to the implementation of the instrumentation.