Thomson scattering measurements of electron temperature and density in an electron cyclotron resonance plasma

Abstract

Electron temperature Te and density ne in the source region of an electron cyclotron resonance discharge have been measured by incoherent Thomson scattering of the beam from a 0.5 J yttrium aluminum garnet laser. This is the first experiment in which this technique, routinely used on fusion plasmas, has been applied to a processing plasma. Measurements were made in an argon discharge at pressures from 0.3 to 2 mTorr and microwave powers from 250 to 1000 W. Velocity distributions were measured both parallel and perpendicular to the magnetic field and a slight anisotropy of electron temperature was observed for low-pressure discharges. Temperatures in the range of 1–5 eV and densities in the range of 2–10×1017 m−3 were measured. Te and ne were found to strongly depend on pressure but only weakly on the input power and discharge magnetic field. No deviations from a Maxwellian velocity distribution were observed.