Diagnostic research of plasmas generated by a 14.5 GHz ECR ion source using Langmuir-probe

Electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) plasmas have already been studied in many ways, mainly by x-ray and UV measurements. Langmuir-probes, however, have proven useful for other kind of plasmas, and have rarely been used to explore the ECR plasma. A diagnostics setup has been built at the 14.5 GHz ATOMKI-ECRIS. Results of the cold plasma region measurements are shown. A modified version of the original methods for characteristics analysis is reported. This includes the complex nature of the plasma ion component. Calculated electron densities yielded by the two compared theoretical models up to a factor of 3 were observed. This obviously shows the necessary consideration of this effect. Studies of two-faced external effects, e.g., biased-disk on/off, beam extraction on/off, have also started; first results are reported. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.