No Arabic abstract
The production of negative ions is of significant interest for applications including mass spectrometry, materials surface processing, and neutral beam injection for magnetic confined fusion. Neutral beam injection sources maximise negative ion production through the use of surface production processes and low work function metals, which introduce complex engineering. Investigating materials and techniques to avoid the use of low work function metals is of interest to broaden the application of negative ion sources and simplify future devices. In this study, we use pulsed sample biasing to investigate the surface production of negative ions from nitrogen doped diamond. The use of a pulsed bias allows for the study of insulating samples in a preserved surface state at temperatures between 150$^{circ}$C and 700$^{circ}$C in a 2 Pa, 130 W, (n$_e$ $sim$ $10^9$ cm$^{-3}$, T$_e$ $sim$ 0.6 eV) inductively coupled deuterium plasma. The negative ion yield during the application of a pulsed negative bias is measured using a mass spectrometer and found to be approximately 20% higher for nitrogen doped diamond compared to non-doped diamond. It is also shown that the pulsed sample bias has a lower peak negative ion yield compared to a continuous sample bias, which suggests that the formation of an optimum ratio of defects on its surface can be favourable for negative ion production.
This work focuses on the production of negative-ions on graphite and diamond surfaces bombarded by positive ions in a low pressure (2 Pa) low power (20 W) capacitively coupled deuterium plasma. A sample is placed opposite a mass spectrometer and negatively biased so that surface produced negative ions can be self-extracted from the plasma and measured by the mass spectrometer. The ratio between negative-ion counts at mass spectrometer and positive ion current at sample surface defines a relative negative-ion yield. Changes in negative-ion production yields versus positive ion energy in the range 10-60 eV are analysed. While the negative-ion production yield is decreasing for diamond surfaces when increasing the positive ion impact energy, it is strongly increasing for graphite. This increase is attributed to the onset of the sputtering mechanisms between 20 and 40 eV which creates negative ions at rather low energy that are efficiently collected by the mass spectrometer. The same mechanism occurs for diamond but is mitigated by a strong decrease of the ionization probability due to defect creation and loss of diamond electronic properties.
The sheath formation in a weakly magnetized collisionless electronegative plasma consisting of electrons, negative and positive ions has been numerically investigated using the hydrodynamic equations. The electrons and negative ions are assumed to follow Boltzmann relation. A sheath formation criterion has been analytically derived. The paper focuses on studying the sheath structure by varying the electronegativity. It has been observed that the presence of negative ions has a substantial effect on the sheath structure. The observations made in the present work have profound significance on processing plasmas, especially in the semiconductor industry as well as in fusion studies.
We measured, using Petawatt-level pulses, the average ion energy and neutron yield in high-intensity laser interactions with molecular clusters as a function of laser intensity. The interaction volume over which fusion occurred (1-10 mm^3) was larger than previous investigations, owing to the high laser power. Possible effects of prepulses were examined by implementing a pair of plasma mirrors. Our results show an optimum laser intensity for the production of energetic deuterium ions both with and without the use of the plasma mirrors. We measured deuterium plasmas with 14 keV average ion energies, which produced 7.2x10^6 and 1.6x10^7 neutrons in a single shot with and without plasma mirrors, respectively. The measured neutron yields qualitatively matched the expected yields calculated using a cylindrical plasma model.
We study the dust surface potential for the complex dusty plasma with negative ions and with a three-parameter non-Maxwell velocity distribution. The plasma contains electrons, positive ions, negative ions, and negatively charged dust particles. By using the current equilibrium condition, we derive the relationship between the normalized dust surface potential and the dusty plasma parameters such as the normalized dust number density, the temperature ratio of negative ions to electrons, the density ratio of negative ions to positive ions, and the charge number of negative ions. The numerical analyses show that the relationship depends evidently on the three parameters in the non-Maxwell distribution when the dust surface potential is relatively smaller, but with increase of the potential, such dependence will weaken soon. The dust surface potential is negative and increases monotonously with increase of the dust density, and for the complex dusty plasma with the three-parameter non-Maxwell distribution, it is generally greater than that in the same plasma with the kappa-distribution and the Maxwellian distribution.
Magnetized plasma interactions are ubiquitous in astrophysical and laboratory plasmas. Various physical effects have been shown to be important within colliding plasma flows influenced by opposing magnetic fields, however, experimental verification of the mechanisms within the interaction region has remained elusive. Here we discuss a laser-plasma experiment whereby experimental results verify that Biermann battery generated magnetic fields are advected by Nernst flows and anisotropic pressure effects dominate these flows in a reconnection region. These fields are mapped using time-resolved proton probing in multiple directions. Various experimental, modelling and analytical techniques demonstrate the importance of anisotropic pressure in semi-collisional, high-$beta$ plasmas, causing a reduction in the magnitude of the reconnecting fields when compared to resistive processes. Anisotropic pressure dynamics are crucial in collisionless plasmas, but are often neglected in collisional plasmas. We show pressure anisotropy to be essential in maintaining the interaction layer, redistributing magnetic fields even for semi-collisional, high energy density physics (HEDP) regimes