Laboratory experiments in the argon plasma perturbed by injections of the electronegative gases

Abstract

In this study, laboratory observations of the perturbations of the magnetic field are reported due to the injection of attachment chemicals (CF4, SF6, and CO2) into argon plasmas. Besides the well-known electron density reduction, we also observed magnetic field perturbation in the experiment. The measured induced voltage Ḃ, which is taken as a proxy of the time-changing electromagnetic field, fluctuates in the boundary layer between the ambient plasmas and negative ions plasmas. Perturbations of the magnetic field were investigated by changing the ambient pressure and ratio of attachment chemicals. The measured Ḃ keeps increasing in these lower pressures; but it no longer increases as the ambient pressure higher than a threshold, e.g., for CF4, SF6, and CO2, the transition pressure is 6Pa, 5Pa and 4Pa, respectively. The magnitude of the Ḃ increase with the change of the ratio of release flow until at higher ratios, e.g., 40%. We transformed these time-sampled data into the frequency domain and found coherent modes with fundamental frequencies lying in the lower hybrid range. In addition, these coherent frequencies show a frequency drift with the increase of the contents of the negative ions. These modes were suggested as the magnetic component of electron-ion hybrid mode. This work has an important application in the study of artificially-created ionospheric depletion which is usually generated by releasing of attachment chemicals in the upper atmosphere.