The laser-induced plasma wakefield in a capillary is investigated on the basis of a simple two-dimensional analytical model. It is shown that as an intense laser pulse reshaped by the capillary wall propagates in capillary plasma, it resonantly excites a strong wakefield if a suitable laser pulse width and capillary radius are chosen for a certain plasma density. The dependence of the laser width and capillary radius on the plasma density for resonance conditions is considered. The wakefield amplitude and longitudinal scale of bubbles in capillary plasma are much larger than those in unbounded plasma, so the capillary guided plasma wakefield is more favorable to electron acceleration.

A finite difference time domain (FDTD) method is used to numerically study the power absorption of broadband terahertz (0.1 ~ 1.5 THz) electromagnetic waves in a partially ionized uniform plasma layer under low pressure and atmosphere discharge conditions. The power absorption spectra are calculated numerically and the numerical results are in accordance with the analytic results. Meanwhile, the effects on the power absorption are calculated with different applied magnetic fields, collision frequencies and electron number densities, which depend strongly on those parameters. Under the dense strongly magnetized plasma conditions, the absorption gaps appear in the range of 0.3 ~ 0.36 THz, and are enlarged with the increasing electron number density.

A large plasma sheet 60 cm×60 cm×2 cm in size was generated using a hollow cathode, and measurements were conducted for interactions including transmission, reflection and absorption. With different discharge parameters, plasma sheets can vary and influence microwave strength. Microwave reflection decreases when the discharge current rises, and the opposite occurs in transmission. The C-band microwave is absorbed when it is propagated through large plasma sheets at higher pressure. When plasma density and collision frequency are fitted with incident microwave frequency, a large amount of microwave energy is consumed. Reflection, transmission and absorption all exist simultaneously. Plasma sheets are an attractive alternative to microwave steering at low pressure, and the microwave reflection used in receiving radar can be altered by changing the discharge parameters.

A cylindrical model of linear MHD instabilities in tokamaks is presented. In the model, the cylindrical plasma is surrounded by a vacuum which is divided into inner and outer vacuum areas by a conducting wall. Linearized resistivity MHD equations with plasma viscosity are adopted to describe our model, and the equations are solved numerically as an initial value problem. Some of the results are used as benchmark tests for the code, and then a series of equilibrium current profiles are used to simulate the bootstrap current profiles in actual experiments with a bump on tail. Thus the effects of these kinds of profiles on MHD instabilities in tokamaks are revealed. From the analysis of the numerical results, it is found that more plasma can be confined when the center of the current bump is closer to the plasma surface, and a higher and narrower current bump has a better stabilizing effect on the MHD instabilities.

A new method based on a chirped optical pulse interferogram has been proposed to measure terahertz radiation. The frequency domain phase information of the interferogram is used to extract the time-domain terahertz pulse waveform. In principle, the resolution of our method can be as high as the unchirped probe pulse duration, with the advantages of relatively simple measurement setup and signal extracting techniques.

Irradiated by femtosecond laser pulses with different energies, opened cone targets behave very differently in the transmission of incident laser pulses. The targets, each with an opening angle of 71° and an opening of 5 μm, are fabricated using standard semiconductor technology. When the incident laser energy is low and no pre-plasma is generated on the side walls of the cones, the cone target acts like an optical device to reflect the laser pulse, and 15% of the laser energy can be transmitted through the cones. In contrast, when the incident laser energy is high enough to generate pre-plasmas by the pre-pulse of the main pulse that fills the inner cone, the cone with the plasmas will block the transmission of the laser, which leads to a decrease in laser transmission compared with the low-energy case with no plasma. Simulation results using optical software in the low-energy case, and using the particle-in-cell code in the high-energy case, are primarily in agreement with the...

In this study, argon and nitrogen were used as the discharge gases in radio-frequency (RF: 13.56 MHz) powered dielectric barrier atmospheric plasma. It was noticed that in single dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) with nitrogen as the discharge gas, or in argon plasma with a high applied power, micro-filament channels were easily formed. The channels in these two kinds of discharge were both constrictive on the bare metallic electrode and expansive on the opposite electrode covered with a quartz layer. The number of micro-channels was increased along with the input power, which caused the change in the I— V curve shape, i.e., the current kept increasing and the voltage fluctuated within a confined range. With double dielectric layers, however, no micro-channels appeared in the ICCD images, and the I— V curve demonstrated a totally different shape. It was assumed that micro-filaments exhibited a restraining effect on the discharge voltage. The mechanism ...

We developed a one-dimensional hybrid model to simulate the DC/RF combined driven capacitively coupled plasma for argon discharges. The numerical results are used to analyze the influence of the DC source on the plasma density distribution, ion energy distributions (IEDs) and ion angle distributions (IADs) on both the RF and DC electrodes. The increase in DC voltage drives more high-energy ions to the electrode applied to the DC source, which makes the IEDs at the DC electrode shift towards higher energy, and the peaks in the IADs shift towards small angle regions. At the same time, it also decreases the ion energy at the RF electrode and enlarges the incident angles of the ions, which strike the RF electrode.

Based on the fundamental ideas concerning microwave attenuation in plasma, we obtain a new expression of transmission attenuation of microwaves as a function of the incident wave frequency. And with reasonable hypothesis, analytical forms of the electron density and the electron-neutral collision frequency are derived from the equations of the transmission attenuation of microwaves at two near frequencies. This method gives an effective and easy approach to diagnose the unmagnetized plasma.

The behavior of argon plasma driven by nanosecond pulsed plasma in a low-pressure plasma reactor is investigated using a global model, and the results are compared with the experimental measurements. The time evolution of plasma density and the electron energy probability function are calculated by solving the energy balance and Boltzmann equations. During and shortly after the discharge pulse, the electron energy probability function can be represented by a bi-Maxwellian distribution, indicating two energy groups of electrons. According to the effective electron temperature calculation, we find that there are more high-energy electrons that play an important role in the excitation and ionization processes than low-energy electrons. The effective electron temperature is also measured via optical emission spectroscopy to evaluate the simulation model. In the comparison, the simulation results are found to be in agreement with the measurements. Furthermore, variations of the effec...