PLASMA INSTABILITIES IN ELECTRON CYCLOTRON RESONANCE HEATED ION SOURCES

THERMAL ENERGY AND PARTICLE TRANSPORT PHENOMENA HAVE EXTREMELY IMPORTANT EFFECTS ON THE PRODUCTION OF HIGH CHARGE-STATE IONS IN HIGH FREQUENCY, HIGH POWER ELECTRON CYCLOTRON RESONANCE (ECR) ION SOURCES. RECENT EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS INDICATE THAT PARTICLE TRANSPORT IN THE DIRECTION PERPENDICULAR TO THE MAGNETIC FIELD IS AN ORDER OF MAGNITUDEGREATER THAN THAT PREDICTED BY CLASSICAL COLLISION TRANSPORTTHEORY. THESE ANOMALOUS TRANSPORT PROCESSES, BELIEVED TO BEINDUCED BY PLASMA MICRO-INSTABILITIES, ARE VERY HARMFUL TO PRODUCTION OF HIGHLY CHARGED IONS. THIS PROJECT INVOLVES A THEORETICAL INVESTIGATION OF PLASMA MICRO-INSTABILITIES DRIVEN BY DENSITY AND TEMPERATURE GRADIENTS IN ECR ION SOURCES. IN PARTICULAR, THE ONSET OF THE INSTABILITIES AND THEIR GROWTH RATE DEPENDENCE ON MEASURABLE PLASMA PARAMETERS--E.G., ELECTRON AND ION TEMPERATURES, ELECTRON AND ION DENSITIES, AND MAGNETIC FIELD--WILL BE STUDIED USINGTHE VLASOV EQUATION. QUASI-LINEAR CALCULATIONS WILL ALLOW STUDY OF BOTH THERMAL ENERGY AND PARTICLE TRANSPORT INDUCED BY THE RELEVANT MICRO-INSTABILITIES. TRANSPORT MODELS WILL BE PROPOSED AND COMPARED WITH EXPERIMENTS; TECHNIQUES FOR EXPERIMENTAL VERIFICATION OF THE THEORETICAL PREDICTIONS WILL BE DEVELOPED.