Development of an electrode to create and characterize high density plasmas

Laboratory plasmas are regularly used to investigate characteristics of plasmas found in space and in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Depending on the specific physics being studied, the devices and the power sources have to be designed and built accordingly. For this purpose, we have designed a new plasma device at Auburn with a novel electrode that will produce plasmas within a specified density range. We used SolidWorks, a CAD engineering program for modeling and design, to model our electrode and ensure that it would work with the chamber we intended to use. We manufactured the electrode according to our design and successfully achieved the necessary plasma densities. This poster will show the design and manufacture process for this electrode, as well as the plasma characterization using Langmuir probes and spectroscopy.