Coaxial tungsten hot plate-based cathode source for Cesium plasma production confined in MPD device

TL;DR

This paper presents the design, fabrication, and characterization of a coaxial tungsten hot plate-based cathode source for cesium plasma production, integrated into a multi-dipole line cusp plasma device, with detailed temperature analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a novel tungsten ionizer plasma source for cesium plasma, including its design, fabrication, and temperature distribution analysis within an MPD device.

Findings

The tungsten hot plate reaches sufficient temperature for cesium ionization.

The plasma source is successfully integrated into the MPD device.

Infrared imaging confirms effective temperature control of the tungsten plate.

Abstract

A Multi-dipole line cusp configured Plasma Device (MPD) having six electromagnets with embedded Vacoflux-50 as a core material and a hot filament-based cathode for Argon plasma production has been characterized by changing the pole magnetic field values. For the next step ahead, a new tungsten ionizer plasma source for contact ionization cesium plasma has been designed, fabricated, and constructed and thus plasma produced will be confined in MPD. An electron bombardment heating scheme at high voltage is adopted for heating of 6.5cm diameter tungsten plate. This article describes the detailed analysis of the design, fabrication, operation, and characterization of temperature distribution over the tungsten hot plate using the Infrared camera of the tungsten ionizer. The tungsten plate has sufficient temperature for the production of Cesium ions/plasma.