Helicon discharges produce plasmas with a density gradient across the confining magnetic field. Such plasmas can create a radial potential well for nonaxisymmetric whistlers, allowing radially localized helicon ͑RLH͒ waves. This work presents new evidence that RLH waves play a significant role in helicon plasma sources. An experimentally measured plasma density profile in an argon helicon discharge is used to calculate the rf field structure. The calculations are performed using a two-dimensional field solver under the assumption that the density profile is axisymmetric. It is found that RLH waves with an azimuthal wave number m = 1 form a standing wave structure in the axial direction and that the frequency of the RLH eigenmode is close to the driving frequency of the rf antenna. The calculated resonant power absorption, associated with the RLH eigenmode, accounts for most of the rf power deposited into the plasma in the experiment.

Measurements of the radio frequency ͑rf͒ field structure, plasma density, and electron temperature are presented for a 1 kW argon helicon plasma source. The measured profiles change considerably when the equilibrium magnetic field is reversed. The measured rf fields are identified as fields of radially localized helicon waves, which propagate in the axial direction. The rf field structure is compared to the results of two-dimensional cold plasma full-wave simulations for the measured density profiles. Electron collision frequency is adjusted in the simulations to match the simulated and measured field profiles. The resulting frequency is anomalously high, which is attributed to the excitation of an ion-acoustic instability. The calculated power deposition is insensitive to the collision frequency and accounts for most of the power supplied by the rf-generator.

We present a method to infer the electron temperature in argon plasmas using a collisional-radiative model for argon ions and measurements of electron density to interpret absolutely calibrated spectroscopic measurements of argon ion (Ar II) line intensities. The neutral density, and hence the degree of ionization of this plasma, can then be estimated using argon atom (Ar I) line intensities and a collisional-radiative model for argon atoms. This method has been tested for plasmas generated on two different devices at the University of Texas at Austin: the helicon experiment and the helimak experiment. We present results that show good correlation with other measurements in the plasma.

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