Is Bohm's Criterion satisfied in a weakly ionized Kr discharge, in the vicinity of a biased grid that permits counter streaming ion flow?

POSTER

Abstract

We consider the problem of the sheath near a negatively biased grid (-100V) that permits ion flow in both directions. We show the first laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) measurements of ion velocity distribution functions (IVDFs) in such a system. We worked with a hot filament discharge at the University of San Diego (length = 64 cm, diameter = 32 cm) in which a Kr discharge was operated with a neutral pressure of 0.1mTorr, $n_e \approx 3\times 10^9 cm^{-3}$ and $T_e \approx 3.5 eV$. Sheath potentials were measured with an emissive probe using the inflection point method in the limit of zero emission. The LIF collection optics were recently upgraded to a 4f system with a spatial resolution smaller than 1mm. IVDFs measured near the grid (80mm diam. 40 lines/cm) indicate ion flow from both sides of the grid. Preliminary analysis of the moments of the IVDFs indicate that Bohm's Criterion is satisfied at the sheath edge.

*Thanks to DOE grant no. DE-SC00114226, NSF grant nos. 1464741, 1464838, and the National Research Foundation of Korea funded by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning (2015M1A7A1A01002784).

Authors

  • Eugene Wackerbarth

    • Dept. Physics \& Biophysics, University of San Diego
  • In-Je Kang

    • Dept. Electrical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • In-Sun Park

    • Dept. Electrical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • Kyu-Sun Chung

    • Dept. Electrical Engineering, Hanyang University, Seoul, Republic of Korea
  • Noah Hershkowitz

    • Dept. Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin-Madison
    • Dept. Engineering Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison
  • Greg Severn

    • Dept. Physics \& Biophysics, University of San Diego