Hall effect in nonideal argon and xenon plasmas

The Hall constant and conductivity of nonideal partially ionized argon and xenon plasmas are measured by the probe methods. Plasmas were generated behind the front of powerful shock waves using linear explosive generators. The results are compared with some plasma models.     

Model of pulsed electric discharge expansion in dense gas taking into account electron and radiative thermal conductivities. I. Expansion mechanism

Using an ionization sensor, it was found that weakly ionized plasma with an ionization degree larger than 10^?6 is formed under exposure to UV radiation of a high-current pulsed electric discharge in gas (air, nitrogen, xenon, and krypton) at atmospheric pressure at a distance of ～1.2–2.5 cm from the discharge boundary. It was shown that the structure of such discharge includes, in addition to the discharge channel, a dense shell and a shock wave, also a region of weakly ionized and excited gas before the shock wave front. The mechanism of discharge expansion in dense gas is ionization and heating of gas involved in the discharge due to absorption of the UV energy flux from the discharge channel and the flux of the thermal energy transferred from the discharge channel to the discharge shell due to electron thermal conductivity.     

Experimental study on high-energy surface arc plasma excitation control of cylindrical detached shock wave

In this study, an electrical parameter test system and a high-speed Schlieren system are used to study the control of a cylindrical detached shock wave through high-energy surface arc plasma excitation. The results show that, when plasma excitation is not applied, the bow shockwave angle around the cylinder is 52°. After the plasma excitation is applied, the arc discharge releases a large amount of heat within a short time, generating a shockwave and a control gas bulb (CGB). As a result, the bow shockwave angle first decreases and then increases, the pressure ratio before and after the shockwave decreases, and the intensity of the bow shockwave weakens. At t = 280 μs, the bow shockwave angle is reduced to a minimum of 46°. The effective interference time of high-energy surface arc plasma excitation on a cylindrical detached shockwave is 820 μs. A high temperature is used to control the heating effect of the bubbles, which will increase the local sound velocity near the wall, reduce the local Mach number, cause the sound velocity to move online, and eventually push the bow shockwave away from the cylinder. Concurrently, heating will accelerate the gas flow, reduce the pressure, and cause the mass flow in the unit flow area of the heated area to decrease, resulting in a strong compression effect, which deforms the bow shockwave. The high-energy surface arc plasma excitation will provide a potential technical means for high-speed aircraft detached shockwave control.     

Model of pulsed electric discharge expansion in dense gas taking into account electron and radiative thermal conductivities. II. Energy balance and equation

Using an ionization sensor, it was found that weakly ionized plasma with an ionization degree larger than 10⁻⁶ is formed under exposure to UV radiation of a high-current pulsed electric discharge in gas (air, nitrogen, xenon, and krypton) at atmospheric pressure at a distance of ∼1.2–2.5 cm from the discharge boundary. It was shown that the structure of such discharge includes, in addition to the discharge channel, a dense shell and a shock wave, also a region of weakly ionized and excited gas before the shock wave front. The mechanism of discharge expansion in dense gas is ionization and heating of gas involved in the discharge due to absorption of the UV energy flux from the discharge channel and the flux of the thermal energy transferred from the discharge channel to the discharge shell due to electron thermal conductivity.     

强激光产生的强磁场及其对弓激波的影响

强激光照射金属线圈后,会在打靶点附近的背景等离子体中诱发冷电子的回流,在金属丝内形成强电流源,从而产生强磁场.本文利用神光II高功率激光器产生的强激光照射金属丝靶,产生了围绕金属丝的环形强磁场.利用B-dot对局域磁感应强度进行了测量,根据测量结果,结合三维模拟程序,反演得到磁场的空间分布.再利用强激光与CH平面靶相互作用产生的超音速等离子体撞击该金属丝,产生了弓激波.通过光学成像手段研究了磁场对冲击波的影响,发现磁场使得弓激波的轮廓变得不明显并且张角变大.同时,通过实验室天体物理定标率,将金属丝表面等离子参数变换到相应的天体参数中,结果证明利用该实验方法可以在实验室中产生类似太阳风的磁化等离子体.     

Passage of a Plane Shock Wave through the Region of a Glow Gas Discharge

Technical Physics - The interaction of a plane shock wave (M = 5) with an ionized plasma region formed before the arrival of a shock wave by a low-current glow gas discharge is considered...     

Disappearance of holographic and interference fringes accompanies optical diagnostics of a supersonic bow shock flow

Preliminary results of optical diagnostics of bow shocks in a supersonic wind tunnel by applying dual-hologram shear interferometry technique are discussed. A strong refraction effect of the probing beam penetrating a region in the vicinity of a bow shock over a blunt nose cone model has been discovered. On a signal hologram the effect leads to the disappearance of holographic fringes in a narrow region attached to the shock wave front. A reconstructed interferogram in this region manifests the absence of an interference pattern.Computer simulations were performed for a part of the probing beam penetrating the area of high-density steep gradients of compressed air attached to the central part of the shock front of a bow shock. The compressed area was modeled as a hyperbolic cap. The bow shock was assumed axisymmetric. The simulations made it possible to evaluate angles of deflections and found conformity with reconstructed interferograms (shadowgraphs).It is concluded that in the above-indicated region of bow shocks probing light is deviated refractively into some angles, which could be large enough for light rays to be blocked out and never arrive at the detector (photo film). In the case when interferometric fringes disappear, the effect of strong refraction makes it impossible to measure air density gradients in some critical region.     

Plasma processing

Low pressure, non-equilibrium, weakly to partially ionized gas discharge plasmas are used for a variety of surface materials processing applications. The most extensive applications are in microelectronics manufacturing, where plasma sputtering, etching, stripping, cleaning and film deposition play key roles in this growing industry. Up to 30% of all process steps in integrated circuit manufacture involve low pressure plasmas in one way or another. The rapid pace of process and product technological change in this industry, coupled with the unique capabilities of plasma processing for extremely finely controlled surface modification, offers new opportunities to plasma scientists     

亚大气压六相交流电弧等离子体射流特性研究:实验测量

以临近空间高超声速飞行器以及航天器再入大气环境飞行过程"黑障"问题的研究为背景,进行了多相交流电弧放电实验装置的物理设计,建立了六相交流电弧等离子体实验平台(MPX-2015),在背景压力为500 Pa的亚大气压条件下获得了最大直径和长度分别达到14.0 cm和60.0 cm的等离子体射流.研究了工作气体流量、真空腔压强、电极间距以及弧电流等因素对等离子体自由射流和冲击射流特性的影响规律.结果表明:在实验参数范围内,真空腔压强对等离子体的射流特性影响最为显著,等离子体自由射流的长度和直径以及冲击钝体条件下的鞘套有效工作长度和厚度均随着压强的降低而增大;提高沿电极环缝注入的工作气体流量或弧电流亦有利于等离子体鞘套尺寸的增加.上述工作有助于进一步开展临近空间飞行器与其周围复杂介质环境间复杂的气动热效应和"黑障"问题的研究.     

Spatial Distribution of Energetic Electrons during Magnetic Reconnection

Electron acceleration by the inductive electric field near the X point in magnetic reconnection is an important generation mechanism for energetic electrons. Particle simulations have revealed that most of energetic electrons reside in the magnetic field line pileup region, and a depletion of energetic electrons can be found near the centre of the diffusion region [Phys. Plasmas, 13 (2006) 012309]. We report direct measurement of energetic electron in and around the ion diffusion region in near-Earth tail by the cluster, and our observations confirm the above predictions: a depletion of the high-energy electron fluxes is detected near the centre of the diffusion region. At the same time, the plasma temperature has a similar profile in the diffusion region. .     

Dust ion-acoustic shock-wave structures: Theory and laboratory experiments

An evolutionary theoretical model is developed that describes dust ion-acoustic shock waves in dusty plasma consisting of ions (treated in the hydrodynamic approximation), Boltzmann electrons, and variable-charge dust grains. Account is taken not only of ionization, absorption, momentum loss by electrons and ions in collisions with dust grains, and gas-kinetic pressure effects but also of the processes peculiar to laboratory plasmas. It is shown that the model is capable of describing all the main experimental results on dust ion-acoustic shock waves [Q.-Z. Luo et al., Phys. Plasmas 6, 3455 (1999); Y. Nakamura et al., Phys. Rev. Lett., 83, 1602 (1999)].     

气体脉冲放电等离子体阻抗的参量研究

在纯净氦气条件下，对高频纵向脉冲放电的等离子体动态阻抗进行了实验研究.测量了放电等离子体阻抗随放电电压、频率以及气体压强之间的变化关系，表明等离子体阻抗随频率和电压的增加而下降，随气压的升高而增大.定性分析了这些宏观参量与等离子体阻抗变化之间的关系，拟合出等离子体阻抗随电压、频率、气压变化的经验公式，并对数值模拟与实验结果进行了比较研究. 关键词： 等离子体阻抗 气体脉冲放电     

Analysis of the impedance mismatch effect in foam-solid targets compressed by laser-driven shock waves

The impedance mismatch effect in a two-layer (low density plastic foam, and solid aluminum, respectively) plane target compressed by a laser driven shock wave is considered. In such targets the ablative pressure generated by absorption of laser light in the foam layer is amplified when crossing the foam-aluminum interface. In this paper an analytical model is developed to evaluate the shock pressure in the aluminum layer as a function of the density and thickness of the foam layer and of the laser parameters. The model is in good agreement with previously published experimental results [A. Benuzzi et al., Phys. Plasmas 5, 2827 (1998)]. Received 20 January 2000 and Received in final form 16 May 2000     

Ionization equilibrium and EOS of a low-temperature hydrogen plasma in weak magnetic fields

The influence of a constant uniform magnetic field on the ionization equilibrium and the thermodynamic properties of a nondegenerate partially ionized hydrogen plasma is studied for weak magnetic fields. Using the methods developed in a previous work, various interaction contributions to the thermodynamic functions are given. The equation of state of a quantum magnetized plasma is presented within the framework of a virial expansion up to the second order in the fugacities, including ladder type contributions corresponding to bound states. A simple interpolation formula for an effective partition function is proposed, connecting the low- and high-field results. Furthermore, a closed analytical approximation for the thermodynamic functions in the chemical picture and a Saha equation for weakly magnetized plasmas are presented. Received 3 April 2000     

Supersonic air-scoop flows of a weakly ionized gas in external electromagnetic field

Steady supersonic flows of a weakly ionized gas in external electric and magnetic fields computed for the problem of flow control in the air scoop of a supersonic vehicle. The numerical simulation was based on a second-order accurate marching scheme for the Euler equations. Effects of plasma and electromagnetic-field parameters on flow structure and distributions of flow variables are analyzed.     

球头高超音速热绕流的研究

本文研究了加热（冷却）对流动的影响。通过计算分析了在不同来流马赫数和加热量下，加热对球头高超音速绕流的影响规律。研究表明，加热对流动有着显著的影响，将使流动出现“热斥冷吸”、表面压力和激波距离增大、加热与冷却影响的非线性、加热使超音速区内马赫数下降趋向于１等现象。     

Optical emission spectroscopy of the sputtering process in the triode system

The results of spectroscopic investigation of plane plasma discharge and sputtering processes in the triode system are presented. The forced electric discharge with currents of 1–4 A at an argon pressure of 1 mTorr was studied using the emission spectroscopy method. The spectra of plasma discharge were observed in the 200–1100 nm wavelength range. Two metal targets, gold and silver, were used for sputtering. It was found that a part of sputtered particles is ionized in plasma. The emission spectra of the ionized gold and silver species were observed as a function of target voltage while sputtering. It was shown that the number of ionized metal species depends on the energy of argon ions.     

Contribution from the Earth's Bow Shock to Region 1 Current under Low Alfvén Mach Numbers

Using global MHD simulations of the solar wind-magnetosphere-ionosphere system, we investigate the dependence of the contribution from the Earth's bow shock (I_1bs) to ionospheric region 1 field aligned current (FAC) (I₁). It is found that I_1bs increases with increasing southward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) strength B_s, if the Alfvén Mach number M_A of the solar wind exceeds 2, a similar result as obtained by previous authors. However, if M_A becomes close to or falls below 2, I_1bs will decrease with B_s in both magnitude and percentage (i.e., I_1bs}/I₁) because of the resultant reduction of the bow shock strength. Both the surface current density J_bs at the nose of the bow shock and the total bow shock current I_bs share nearly the same relationship with M_A, and vary non-monotonically with M_A or B_s. The maximum point is found to be located at M_A = 2.7. Three conclusions are then made as follows: (1) The surface current density at the nose, which is much easier to be evaluated, may be used to largely describe the behaviour of the bow shock instead of the total bow shock current. (2) The peak of the total bow shock current is reached at about M_A = 2.7 when only B_s is adjusted. (3) The non-monotonic variation of the bow shock current with M_A causes a similar variation of its contribution to region 1 FAC. The turning point for such contribution is found to be nearly M_A= 2. The implication of these conclusions to the saturation of the ionospheric transpolar potential is briefly discussed     

Plasma physics issues in gas discharge laser development

An account is given of the interplay between partially ionized plasma physics and the development of gas discharge lasers. Gas discharge excitation has provided a wide array of laser devices extending from the soft X-ray region to the far infrared. The scaling of gas discharge lasers in power and energy also covers many orders of magnitude. The particular features of three regimes are discussed: short wavelength lasers (deep UV to soft X-ray), visible and near UV lasers, and infrared molecule gas lasers. The current status (fall, 1990) of these areas is reviewed and an assessment is made of future research topics that are perceived to be important