Antenna design for RF Ion Heating of anisotropic magnetized plasma

In this paper, we present and validate a 3D full-wave numerical model for solving the wave propagation in the anisotropic magnetoplasma of Electron Cyclotron Resonance (ECR) ion sources, with the aim to analyze and design radiofrequency antennas which could produce Ion Cyclotron Resonance Heating (ICRH). Our tool is based on the coupling between COMSOL FEM solution of Maxwell equations and the MATLAB-computed non-homogeneous plasma dielectric tensor. This approach allows the evaluation of RF absorbed power by the plasma as well as the antenna input impedance which represents a crucial parameter for the design of the feeding and matching circuits usually adopted in ICRH setup. A numerical study has been performed by varying antenna geometry and plasma parameters: results are reported and cross-validated against other models.