An evaluation of different antenna designs for helicon wave excitation in a cylindrical plasma source

A magnetohydrodynamic numerical model, based on the finite element method, is employed to analyze the antenna radiation resistance in a cylindrical helicon wave driven plasma source. The antenna radiation resistances of four commonly used antennas are compared. The effects on antenna radiation resistance of frequency, plasma density, density profile and the system dimensions are investigated. It is confirmed that m = +1 is the most strongly excited mode. It is shown that the plasma density gradient tends to suppress the excitation of negative rn-modes. Some wave field patterns are also presented which demonstrate commonly observed features in the experiments such as the beat patterns of copropagating radial modes. The findings highlight the importance of antenna radiation resistance modelling as a first step to a self consistent model of the discharge physics of cool dense helicon wave driven sources. (C) 1996 American Institute of Physics.