Building Langmuir Probes and Emissive Probes for Plasma Potential Measurements in Low Pressure, Low Temperature Plasmas

Langmuir probes have long been used in experimental plasma physics research as the primary diagnostic for particle fluxes (i.e., electron and ion fluxes) and their local spatial concentrations, for electron temperatures, and for electrostatic plasma potential measurements, since its invention by Langmuir in the early 1920s. Emissive probes are used for measuring plasma potentials. The protocols exhibited in this work serve to demonstrate how these probes may be built for use in a vacuum chamber in which a plasma discharge may be confined and sustained. This involves vacuum techniques for building what is essentially an electrical feedthrough, one that is rotatable and translatable. Certainly, complete Langmuir probe systems may be purchased, but they can also be built by the user at considerable cost savings, and at the same time be more directly adapted to their use in a particular experiment. We describe the use of Langmuir probes and emissive probes in mapping the electrostatic plasma potential from the body of the plasma up to the sheath region of a plasma boundary, which in these experiments is created by a negatively biased electrode immersed within the plasma, in order to compare the two diagnostic techniques and assess their relative advantages and weaknesses. Although Langmuir probes have the advantage of measuring the plasma density and electron temperature most accurately, emissive probes can measure electrostatic plasma potentials more accurately throughout the plasma, up to and including the sheath region.