25-11-2013
In each issue Europhysics News, the bimonthly magazine of the European Physical Society, highlights the most important papers in each of the 11 areas of physics published in European journals.
In its latest issue (Vol. 44 No. 5) this publication highlighted the article "Analysis of the charge state distribution in Ar plasma", by Mauro Guerra, Pedro Amaro, and José Paulo Santos, of the CFA-FCT, published the Journal of Physics B.
Investigation of charge state distributions (CSD) in astrophysical as well as laboratory plasmas, such as those provided by electron-beam ion traps, electron–cyclotron-resonance ion source (ECRIS) and tokamaks, is very important for the understanding of plasma processes.
In this work, the authors have determined the CSD of Ar plasma through the analysis of x-ray spectra obtained with a double crystal spectrometer. It is the first time that such a spectrometer is used coupled to an ECRIS for measuring inner-shell transitions in highly charged ions.
Comparison to extracted ion currents show that the CSD in the center of the plasma can be quite different from the ion beam yields, due to the fact that the ions are extracted from the plasma edges.
Link to the article highlighted: http://iopscience.iop.org/0953-4075/46/6/065701/
