E-H mode transitions and high-energy electron characteristics of helical antenna coupled plasma

Abstract

Abstract Metastable and high-energy electron characteristics obtained from optical emission spectroscopy are used to analyze the dependence of the H mode on the magnetic field strength and discharge pressure. The results show that the H-mode characteristics gradually appears as the magnetic field strength is increased, the reason being that electrons undergo multiple acceleration-collision cycles at high magnetic field strength, thereby the metastable ionization will be increased. This improves energy utilization and making the H mode appearing. The variation in the density of metastable states and the Langmuir probe data shows that the electron energy distribution function evolves from non-Maxwellian to Maxwellian. The radial constraint of the magnetic field to the electrons and thus reduces the electron heating efficiency. Moreover, the increase in electric field strength with magnetic field leads to an increase in energy obtained by the electrons per unit distance. The competition between the two makes the number of high-energy electrons decrease rapidly first, and then increase slowly with magnetic field strength increasing. The turning point increases with the increase of discharge pressure and radio-frequency (RF) power. And the higher the pressure the lower the high-energy electron. For fields between 105.5 G and 212.7 G. In the H-mode regime, and with increasing RF power, the number of high-energy electrons will be sudden rise after experiencing a steady increase. The sudden rise RF power increase with magnetic field and decrease with discharge pressure increase. However, at high magnetic fields (>265 G) and high power (>450 W), the high-energy electron density decreases with power increasing.