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Laser Thomson scattering (LTS) is shown to provide a useful means for measurements of negative ion density in a glow discharge plasma. Because the saturation energy density is so low that complete photo-detachment occurs at a very early stage of the probing laser pulse for the LTS measurement, the main part of the laser pulse is Thomson scattered by the photo-detached electrons as well as those already generated in the discharge. The energies of photo-detached electrons are below the energy difference between the photon energy and the electron affinity of the negative ions, and Thomson scattering from these appears below the difference energy. The principle has been tested using the second harmonic of a YAG laser light (532 nm) against an inductively coupled plasma operated in a mixture of Ar(80%)/O 2 (20%) at a pressure of 20 mTorr, and yielded the negative ion density of 1.5 × 10 17 m −3 , which amounted to 37% of the electron density of 4.1 × 10 17 m −3 or 27% of the negative charges (electrons and negative ions).

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This paper describes the developments of laser Thomson scattering (LTS) for measuring electron density and temperature, or more generally electron energy distribution function (eedf) in glow discharge plasmas with electron densities below 10 18 m −3 . A brief description of the method for overcoming the sparcity of scattered photons by data accumulation techniques is followed by examples of applications, conducted at the authors' laboratory, to the measurement of the shape of the eedf and temperature anisotropy in various discharges including reactive plasmas, and some as close as 100 µm from a material surface. Measurements of the latter sort should permit the elucidation of micro-discharges and electrode effects such as cathode fall phenomena in particular.

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