Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 212-223).

No description available.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, 1981. / Microfiche copy available in Archives and Science. / Bibliography: leaves 171-173. / by Adolfo Figueroa Vinãs. / Ph.D.

A numerical study is done of a plasma in contact with a cold solid surface that is emitting a neutral gas. Two numerical models have been developed to describe the dominant phenomena of surface plasma structures. The first model entails a steady-state, kinetic treatment of the transport equations in one space dimension and one velocity dimension, to determine self-consistently the distribution functions of the interacting species and the electrostatic potential near the solid surface. The dominant phenomena in this region are the ionization of the neutral gas and the acceleration of the resulting ions by the electrostatic field in a pre-sheath region. Other effects involved are a Debye sheath structure between the solid surface and pre-sheath, and collisional trapping and untrapping of electrons in an electrostatic potential well that is predicted in the pre-sheath region. Results are presented from a nondimensional model with a monatomic returning neutral species and for diatomic molecular hydrogen returning from the surface. For each set of physical parameters chosen, a one parameter family of solutions is obtained. The second numerical model involves a steady-state treatment of the transport equations in a (x,v∥,v⊥) phase space for the interacting species. Included in this model are ionization of the refluxing monatomic neutrals, a self-consistently determined electrostatic potential and a nonlinear Fokker-Planck treatment of ion-ion Coulomb collisions. Both the region near the surface dominated by kinetic effects and the region away from the surface in which Coulomb collisional effects are significant are treated. Results are presented which identify the correct physical solution for the region near the surface from the permitted family found with the kinetic model. Additionally, results are shown which span a temperature range from the high temperature kinetic regime where Coulomb collisional effects are negligible, to the low temperature, highly collisional fluid regime. At low temperatures the collisional model agrees well with standard fluid techniques.

<p>The work presented in this thesis involves experimental and theoretical studies related to plasma properties in high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HiPIMS), and more specifically plasma transport. HiPIMS is an ionized PVD method based on conventional direct current magnetron sputtering (dcMS). In dcMS very little of the sputtered material is ionized since the plasma power density is not high enough. This is not the case for HiPIMS, where a substantial part is ionized, and thus presents many new opportunities for thin film growth. Understanding the dynamics of the charged species in the HiPIMS discharge is therefore of essential value when producing high-quality thin film coatings.</p><p>In the first part of the work a new type of anomalous electron transport was found. Investigations of the transport resulted in the discovery that this phenomenon could quantitatively be described as being related and mediated by highly nonlinear waves, likely due to the modified two-stream instability (MTSI), resulting in electric field oscillations in the MHz-range (the so-called lower hybrid frequency). Measurements in the plasma confirmed these oscillations as well as trends predicted by the theory of these types of waves. The degree of anomalous transport in the plasma could also be determined by measuring the current density ratio between the azimuthal current density (of which the Hall current density is one contribution) and the discharge current density, <em>J</em><em>φ</em><em> / J</em><em>D</em>. The results provided important insights into understanding the mechanism behind the anomalous transport.</p><p>It was furthermore found that the current ratio <em>J</em><em>φ</em><em> / J</em><em>D</em> is inversely proportional to the transverse resistivity, eta_perpendicular , which governs how well momentum is transferred from the electrons to the ions in the plasma. By looking at the forces involved in the charged particle transport it was expected that the azimuthally rotating electrons would exert a volume force on the ions tangentially outwards from the circular race track region. The effect of having an anomalous transport would therefore be a large fraction of highly energetic ions being transported sideways and lost to the walls. In a series of experiments, deposition rates as well as incoming ion energy distributions were measured directly at the side of the magnetron. It was found that a substantial fraction of sputtered material is transported radially away from the cathode and lost to the walls in HiPIMS as well as dcMS, but more so for HiPIMS giving one possible explanation to why the deposition rate for substrates placed in front of the target is lower for HiPIMS compared to dcMS. Furthermore, the recorded, incoming ion energy distributions confirmed theoretical estimations on this type of transport regarding energy and direction.</p>

This thesis deals with the dependence of the linear spatial growth rate of the cross-field ion acoustic instability on various plasma parameters. A kinetic theory model, with elastic and inelastic ion-neutral collisions included, is presented and used to conduct a numerical survey of the instability. The growth rate is computed as a function of distance into the plasma, taking into account the attenuation of the ion beam by charge exchange collisions. Further calculations show the variation in growth rate as a function of the following quantities: electron and ion beam temperature, electron density, beam velocity, background ion temperature, magnetic field, the angle between magnetic field direction and wave vector and the finite width of the plasma. The instability was observed in a double plasma device where an ion beam was passed through a background of stationary magnetized electrons. The magnetic field was sufficiently weak to allow approximately rectilinear ion motion. The growth rate of the wave was studied using interferometer techniques. It was identified by the dispersion relation as the cross-field ion acoustic wave propagating as the slow mode of the beam. It was found that the background ions play an important role in determining the phase velocity. Experimental data of the growth rate dependence on wave number, beam velocity and magnetic field strength were found to be well described by the theoretical model. The growth rate dependence of magnetic field direction on plasma width was furthermore found to be in qualitative agreement with the model. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1990.

Abstract available in PDF file. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, 1979.

Thesis (M. S.)--Nuclear and Radiological Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2006. / Dr. Cassiano de Oliveira, Committee Member ; Dr. John Mandrekas, Committee Member ; Dr. Weston M. Stacey, Committee Chair. Includes bibliographical references.

The first experimental demonstration of feedback suppression of rotating external kink modes near the ideal wall limit in a tokamak using Kalman filtering to discriminate the n = 1 kink mode from background noise is reported. In order to achieve the highest plasma pressure limits in tokamak fusion experiments, feedback stabilization of long-wavelength, external instabilities will be required, and feedback algorithms will need to distinguish the unstable mode from noise due to other magnetohydrodynamic activity. When noise is present in measurements of a system, a Kalman filter can be used to compare the measurements with an internal model, producing a realtime, optimal estimate for the system's state. For the work described here, the Kalman filter contains an internal model that captures the dynamics of a rotating, growing instability and produces an estimate for the instability's amplitude and spatial phase. On the High Beta Tokamak-Extended Pulse (HBT-EP) experiment, the Kalman filter algorithm is implemented using a set of digital, field-programmable gate array controllers with 10 microsecond latencies. The feedback system with the Kalman filter is able to suppress the external kink mode over a broad range of spatial phase angles between the sensed mode and applied control field, and performance is robust at noise levels that render feedback with a classical, proportional gain algorithm ineffective. Scans of filter parameters show good agreement between simulation and experiment, and feedback suppression and excitation of the kink mode are enhanced in experiments when a filter made using optimal parameters from the experimental scans is used.

Experiments on the DIII-D device in the negative triangularity (NT) regime of tokamak operation demonstrate core conditions that offer advantageous stability properties. Long duration, stationary discharges in this scenario maintain performance metrics that scale to viable reactor gain. Deleterious global modes of toroidal mode number n=1 are infrequent in these plasmas, which operate free of core instability cycles that can kick off global instabilities. These plasmas operate free of edge instability cycles that would damage reactor components, as do all strongly shaped NT plasmas. Reproducible access to high-power stationary states was developed at two values of q95, the edge magnetic winding number or “safety factor”. Core MHD instabilities manifest in one form of internal ideal mode, the quasi-interchange mode (QI), found to be consistent with modeling of the profiles and parameter space in which NT operates. The GATO and DCON ideal MHD codes are used to characterize the limits to normalized pressure in NT, finding global kink modes with strong poloidal harmonic m=1,2 components at normalized plasma pressure βN=3-3.5. Limits to β_N are predicted to be mostly insensitive to plasma boundary shape in NT and similar at both q95 values obtained in experiments. Average triangularity is shown to affect ideal limits, when modified at the outer midplane. A similar result is obtained with the RDCON resistive MHD code, which is used to characterize the stability to resistive “tearing modes”. Experimental NT equilibria and equilibria across shape scans were investigated. Only outer midplane modifications affected tearing calculations. Ideal kink modeling and experimental observations of sporadic QI mode provide an explanation for current diffusion not predicted by neoclassical theory. This effect is found in experiments at q95=3, analyzed with the ONETWO transport code’s facility to evolve magnetic flux over a discharge consistently with measured profiles and reconstructed magnetic flux surfaces. This result is compared with GATO calculations and ONETWO flux diffusion analysis of a conventional shape, ITER baseline demonstration discharge that is shown to have an intrinsically 3D core. Radiation from accumulated plasma impurities seems to alter the core q profile. This makes unstable a QI mode that spurs formation of a helical core, sustained by anomalous magnetic flux diffusion. NT experiments at q95=4 are limited in energy confinement by poor fast ion confinement, as a result of nondisruptive core 3/2 tearing modes. Analysis with ONETWO shows agreement with neoclassical flux diffusion predictions in these cases, corresponding to a removal of core instabilities and elevation of minimum safety factor values qmin to unity. This understanding of the core MHD, performance, and operational limits of NT scenarios in DIII-D advances the development of negative triangularity scenarios and informs the core phenomena observed in experiments spanning the regime.