Experimental study on ion extraction from laser induced low temperature plasma using RF heating

Summary form only given, as follows. Plasma induced in the atomic vapor laser isotope separation (AVLIS) process in which specified isotopic atoms are ionized through multistep photoionization is usually characterized by an electron temperature as low as one tenth of an eV and a dense mixture with neutral atoms of nonspecified isotopes. The amount of extracted ion current from the plasma to the electrode is controlled by the plasma Bohm current at the sheath edge as well as the space-charge limited current in the sheath region. As the Bohm current depends on the electron temperature of the plasma, the authors took advantage of increasing the plasma electron temperature by RF-wave heating in order to enhance the ion extraction velocity. When RF is applied, the peak current of extracted ions is increased, although the duration of the pulsed ion current waveform is decreased, which shows that this method can shorten the time required for the ion extraction considerably without producing additional plasma due to RF discharge.