Neutral beam probe spectroscopy for the measurement of local plasma density fluctuations

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Abstract
A neutral Li beam probing combined with a spectroscopic technique to measure local electron‐density fluctuations is experimentally demonstrated in an ECR test plasma. The density fluctuations of up to 180 kHz are excited and controlled by applying periodic bursts of sinusoidal waves to a grid. The electron‐density fluctuation levels thus obtained are found to agree well with those measured with a Langmuir probe. It is also suggested that this method can be applied to plasmas whose densities are in a wide range of 1010–1013 cm−3.