Cylindrical Probe in a Collision Dominated Plasma with a Uniform Magnetic Field

Abstract

Langmuir probe theory for a slightly ionized, collisional plasma is extended to a problem formulation to allow for the presence of uniform magnetic field. Plasma potential and density distributions have been studied to the cylindrical probe whose axis is aligned with the direction of the magnetic field. The saturation current for the negatively biased probe has been calculated. The derivation of the mathematical formulation is based upon the technique of taking the conservation of mass to the number flux equations for diffusion with electric and superposed magnetic field solved with the help of Poisson's equation for sheath and quasi-neutral regions.