Parametric study of plasma density and field profiles in helicon plasma source under various operating conditions

The helicon plasma is basically inductive coupled plasma with an axial DC magnetic field, which helps to trigger Helicon mode wave. The Helicon wave sources produces high plasma density compared to traditional radio frequency sources (capacitive coupled and inductively coupled) at comparable input powers. Why these helicon sources are so efficient is still not well understood and debatable. A permanent magnet based helicon plasma source is being developed in Institute for Plasma Research. In the present work, parametric study of the expected plasma density in the source has been done with various operating parameters like, Pressure, DC Magnetic field, RF Power and driving Frequency. All the simulation results are obtained using HELIC code, a C++ based program developed for the study of RF plasma sources. This study will also be helpful in interpreting data obtained from Langmuir and field probes during source characterization under various operating conditions. Comparative study between inductive mode and helicon mode is done to understand the physics of power coupling. (author)