THEORETICAL AND EXPERIMENTAL INVESTIGATION OF MICROWAVE SCATTERING FROM A CYLINDRICAL PLASMA

摘要

This investigation was concerned with the theoretical and experi-mental study of a modest temperature plasma obtained by seeding with low ionization potential elements. A detailed thermochemical analysis of nitrogen or air as the carrier gases and sodium, potassium, or cesium as the seeding elements was made. The results are presented for a range of seeding ratios and temperatures up to 4000m,nThe experimental facility consisted of an RF plasma generator which produced a low velocity cylindrical plasma at 1 atmosphere pres¬sure and a temperature of 275K. Seeding was accomplished by using an atomizer and aqueous solutions of the nitrates of the seeding elements.nThe phase and amplitude of 3 cm microwaves scattered from the finite length, cylindrical, thermal plasma were measured by a micro wave interferometer. These measurements were compared to the theo¬retical predicted values as obtained from an IBM 7090 computer programs which considered the scattering of a plane incident electromagnetic wave from a homogeneous, cylindrical, infinite length plasma with properties based on the Saha equation ionization and available collision cross section data.