This thesis presents the calibration process and analysis results for the two Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP) units that were flown as part of the NASA Equis-I I campaign from the Kwa jalein Atoll. The work of calibration that was presented by Krishna Kurra for the PIP on the Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU) is improved and extended herein. The sweeping impedance probe (SIP), the instrument formerly known as plasma sweeping probe (PSP), is an integral part of the PIP. For the SIP, the calibration presented in this work, calibration error less than 5% error is achieved. The calibration is applied to the flight data to yield impedance measurements. Balmain’s normalized theoretical model is fit to normalized calibrated data to obtain electron density profiles within the range of about 2 × 103 to 5 × 106 [Ne /cm3 ]. Electron density profiles from the plasma frequency probe (PFP), also part of the PIP, are compared with the density profiles from the SIP and there is a close correlation, verifying the calibration and analysis of the SIP.

The Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP) is an electronic instrument that measures the impedance of a dipole antenna immersed in a plasma environment. Measurements made by the PIP provide valuable information regarding the plasma environment. Knowledge of ionospheric plasma density and density disturbances is required to understand radio frequency communication with satellites. The impedance curve provides us with significant plasma characteristics such as the electron-neutral collision frequency and plasma electron density. The work proposed here is a transistor-level implementation of the analog front-end, the non-inverting amplifier that is used to drive the antenna. The antenna immersed in plasma is excited with a sinusoidal/pulse stimulus and the output from the non-inverting configuration is fed into the difference amplifier. In the difference amplifier the output signal from the non- inverting amplifier is subtracted from the original stimulus and then fed into a high-speed pipeline data converter. The entire analog and mixed signal components are integrated on a single chip. The obvious advantages with this design are that it eliminates several sources of analog signal processing errors, thereby improving stability. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is then applied on the sampled input stimulus as well as the processed signal. The input voltage FFT is then divided by the current FFT to obtain the antenna impedance. The FFT method helps in reducing transient errors and improves noise immunity of the system. The antenna impedance span curves over the frequency range from 100 kHz to 20MHz. The approach for the tranistor-level design is implementing short-channel design tech- niques using the gm/ID method. This is the primary focus of the thesis where the emphasis has been on using a simple and intuitive method to design the front-end amplifier in the TSMC .35 um technology. The design specifications for this amplifier are derived from the system-level simulations. The transition from a Printed Circuit Board (PCB)-based design to System on Chip (SOC) implementation is explored. This makes the design components highly specific to the application. The following are the design approaches used for the analog front-end design. * A detailed study of the various factors affecting the PIP instrument measurement capabilities from the previous works. * System-level simulation of the the entire PIP system to completely characterize the analog front-end. * Exploration of the possible design topologies for the transistor-level implementation. * A novel method of analog amplifier design using the gm/ID methodology. Miniaturization of the instrument and using a pulse-based measurement scheme also offer an immediate benefit to sounding rocket missions. The reduction of power, mass, and volume will enable the instrument to be flown on many more sounding rockets than at present. The faster measurement is especially valuable since the ionospheric plasma changes in character most rapidly with altitude.

Space instrumentation technology is an essential tool for rocket and satellite research, and is expected to become popular in commercial and military operations in fields such as radar, imaging, and communications. These instruments are traditionally implemented on printed circuit boards using discrete general-purpose Analog-to-Digital Converter (ADC) devices and other components. A large circuit board is not convenient for use in micro-satellite deployments, where the total payload volume is limited to roughly one cubic foot. Because micro-satellites represent a fast growing trend in satellite research and development, there is motivation to explore miniaturized custom application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs to reduce the volume and power consumption occupied by instrument electronics. In this thesis, a model of a new Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP) architecture, which utilizes a custom-built ADC along with other analog and digital components, is proposed. The model can be fully integrated to produce a low-power, miniaturized impedance probe.

Variations in ionospheric plasma density can cause large amplitude and phase changes in the radio waves passing through this region. Ionospheric weather can have detrimental effects on several communication systems, including radars, navigation systems such as the Global Positioning Sytem (GPS), and high-frequency communications. As a result, creating models of the ionospheric density is of paramount interest to scientists working in the field of satellite communication. Numerous empirical and theoretical models have been developed to study the upper atmosphere climatology and weather. Multiple measurements of plasma density over a region are of marked importance while creating these models. The lack of spatially distributed observations in the upper atmosphere is currently a major limitation in space weather research. A constellation of CubeSat platforms would be ideal to take such distributed measurements. The use of miniaturized instruments that can be accommodated on small satellites, such as CubeSats, would be key to acheiving these science goals for space weather. The accepted instrumentation techniques for measuring the electron density are the Langmuir probes and the Plasma Impedance Probe (PIP). While Langmuir probes are able to provide higher resolution measurements of relative electron density, the Plasma Impedance Probes provide absolute electron density measurements irrespective of spacecraft charging. The central goal of this dissertation is to develop an integrated architecture for the PIP that will enable space weather research from CubeSat platforms. The proposed PIP chip integrates all of the major analog and mixed-signal components needed to perform swept-frequency impedance measurements. The design's primary innovation is the integration of matched Analog-to-Digital Converters (ADC) on a single chip for sampling the probes current and voltage signals. A Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) is performed by an off-chip Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) to compute the probes impedance. This provides a robust solution for determining the plasma impedance accurately. The major analog errors and parametric variations affecting the PIP instrument and its effect on the accuracy and precision of the impedance measurement are also studied. The system clock is optimized in order to have a high performance ADC. In this research, an alternative clock generation scheme using C-elements is described to reduce the timing jitter and reference spurs in phase locked loops. While the jitter performance and reference spur reduction is comparable with prior state-of-the-art work, the proposed Phase Locked Loop (PLL) consumes less power with smaller area than previous designs.

Le travail effectué dans le cadre de cette thèse porte sur l’étude des plasmas magnétisés et nonmagnétisés produits par des structures coaxiales qui font office à la fois de propagateur d’onde et de coupleur à impédance adaptée au plasma, mais aussi de sonde d’investigation et de caractérisation de la décharge. Une attention particulière est accordée à l’efficacité de couplage entre l’onde électromagnétique et la décharge et de production d’espèces, et ce pour différentes conditions opératoires : fréquence d’excitation (352 et 2450 MHz),configuration magnétique, géométrie de l’applicateur. L’analyse quantitative et comparative présentée dans ce travail s’appuie aussi bien sur une approche expérimentale que théorique. Les modèles analytiques développés etla simulation électromagnétique réalisée permettent d’extraire à partir des mesures expérimentales, d’une partl ’impédance du plasma décorrélée de celle de la structure de propagation de l’onde, et d’autre part, l’absorption globale et locale de l’onde. Du point de vue expérimental, des techniques et méthodes appropriées ont donc été développées et mises en oeuvre comme, par exemple la méthode de changement de plan d’impédance, ou encore l’auto-interférométrie. L’étude paramétrique, menée sur un domaine de pression étendu sur plusieurs décades(10-4 – 10 Torr) et pour une gamme de puissances allant de un à plusieurs centaines de watts, a permis une investigation minutieuse du type de couplage (capacitif, inductif, résistif) qui est fortement dépendant des caractéristiques de la décharge et donc des paramètres opératoires. Leur mise en corrélation, associée à l’analyse des modes de propagation dans un plasma magnétisé, a permis de localiser avec plus de précision les zones de couplage et d’identifier les principaux mécanismes d’absorption de l’onde mis en jeu. Les principaux résultats obtenus confirment une meilleure efficacité de production d’espèces chargées à une fréquence plus élevée (2450MHz), et la présence d’une population d’électrons chauds plus conséquente ainsi qu’une extension spatiale du plasma lorsque la fréquence est plus faible (352 MHz). Comme la technologie 352 MHz à état solide est plus avantageuse du point de vue du coût des composants, comparée à 2450 MHz, elle pourrait s’avérer intéressante pour des procédés visant la production d’espèces chimiquement actives. Toutefois, le couplage, peu efficace, de type capacitif induit par la diminution de la fréquence, requiert une attention accrue au niveau de la configuration du coupleur. Pour le développement en amont des coupleurs, les résultats issus de ce travail de thèse et les modèles analytiques développés devraient constituer un outil déterminant dans la conception de sources plasma micro-onde performantes. / The work done within the framework of this thesis focuses on the study of magnetized and nonmagnetizedplasmas produced by coaxial structures that serve both as wave propagator and as plasma matchedimpedance coupler but also as investigation and characterization probe of the discharge. Special attention isgiven to the efficiency of coupling between the electromagnetic wave and the discharge and of speciesproduction, for different operating conditions: excitation frequency (352 and 2450 MHz), magnetic configurationand geometry of the applicator. Quantitative and comparative analysis presented in this work is based both on anexperimental and a theoretical approach. Developed analytical models and conducted electromagnetic simulationare set in connection with the experimental measurements in order to determine, on the one hand, the plasmaimpedance de-embedded of the wave propagation structure and, on the other hand, the global and localabsorption of the wave. From the experimental point of view, appropriate techniques and methods have thereforebeen developed and implemented such as, for example, the impedance plane shift method, or autointerferometry.The parametric study, conducted on a pressure range extended over several decades (10-4 - 10Torr) and power ratings from one to several hundred watts, led to a thorough investigation of the coupling type(capacitive, inductive, resistive ) which is highly dependent on the discharge characteristics and thus of theoperating parameters. Their correlation, combined with the analysis of propagation modes in a magnetizedplasma, has helped locate more accurately the areas of coupling and to identify the main power absorptionmechanisms involved. The main results obtained for the two frequencies confirm a better production efficiencyof charged species at a higher frequency (2450 MHz), the presence of a more substantial hot electron populationand a spatial expansion of the plasma when the frequency is low (352 MHz). As the solid state 352 MHztechnology is more advantageous compared to that at 2450 MHz from the viewpoint of the cost of thecomponents, it could be interesting for processes aiming to produce active chemical species. However itsinefficient coupling, of capacitive type induced by frequency reduction, requires an increased attention at thelevel of coupler configuration. For upstream development of couplers, the analytical models and theexperimental results obtained in this thesis should be a key tool in the design of high-performance microwaveplasma sources.