1. A microwave interferometer for small and tenuous plasma density measurements.
- Author
-
Tudisco, O., Lucca Fabris, A., Falcetta, C., Accatino, L., De Angelis, R., Manente, M., Ferri, F., Florean, M., Neri, C., Mazzotta, C., Pavarin, D., Pollastrone, F., Rocchi, G., Selmo, A., Tasinato, L., Trezzolani, F., and Tuccillo, A. A.
- Subjects
MICROWAVES ,INTERFEROMETERS ,MEASURING instruments ,OPTICAL instruments ,PLASMA density ,PLASMA gases - Abstract
The non-intrusive density measurement of the thin plasma produced by a mini-helicon space thruster (HPH.com project) is a challenge, due to the broad density range (between 1016 m-3 and 1019 m-3) and the small size of the plasma source (2 cm of diameter). A microwave interferometer has been developed for this purpose. Due to the small size of plasma, the probing beam wavelength must be small (λ = 4 mm), thus a very high sensitivity interferometer is required in order to observe the lower density values. A low noise digital phase detector with a phase noise of 0.02° has been used, corresponding to a density of 0.5 × 1016 m-3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2013
- Full Text
- View/download PDF