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A measurement of the effective thickness of the plasma sheath at a cold electrode

1965; IOP Publishing; Volume: 16; Issue: 11 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1088/0508-3443/16/11/313

2057-7656

J. A. Nation, David Simpson,

Mass Spectrometry Techniques and Applications

The concept of potential sheaths, existing close to cold probes, is commonly used in examining current flow from a plasma to external electrodes. A technique is described by which the effective thickness of this sheath can be determined experimentally, by measuring the capacitance of the electrode-plasma system. It was found that over the temperature range 3500-5000°K the effective sheath thickness is comparable to the Debye length of the plasma. The experimental results presented were obtained in weakly ionized argon at atmospheric pressure.