Heavy Neutral Beam Probe space potential measurements of the Helimak experiment (Te ∼ 10 eV)

The Heavy Neutral Beam Probe (HNBP) for the Helimak low temperature plasma experiment has been developed at the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin). The HNBP is based on the highly successful Heavy Ion Beam Probe (HIBP), but is engineered to work in the low temperature plasma regime (Te <; 40 eV). The greatest difficutly to operation at low electron temperatures is that the measurement signal is enabled by electron-impact ionization events, which become increasingly rare when the temperature dips to ~10 eV. This problem is overcome by probing the plasma with a neutral alkali metal (Na) and by modulating the probing beaming with a square wave (chopping) and recovering the signal with phase sensitive detection. The Helimak experiment at UT-Austin approximates the infinite cylindrical slab with open field lines
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. The geometry is like a torus, but with a rectangular cross-section and with vertical field coils, that combined with the toroidal field coils, give rise to a helical magnetic field inside the device. Because of the curved, sheared magnetic field, and its gradient, the Helimak simulates the scrape off layer (SOL) of a tokamak.