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 10^19 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 × 10^16 m−3.
A microwave interferometer for small and tenuous plasma density measurements
MANENTE, MARCO;FERRI, FRANCESCA;PAVARIN, DANIELE;TREZZOLANI, FABIO;
2013
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 10^19 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 × 10^16 m−3.
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