J. P. Boeuf

Low-temperature E×B plasmas are used in various applications, such as Hall thrusters for satellite propulsion, ion sources and magnetron discharges for plasma processing, and negative ion sources for neutral beam injection in fusion. The plasmas in these devices are partially magnetized, meaning that the electrons are strongly magnetized while the ions are not. They are subject to various micro- and macro-instabilities that differ significantly from instabilities in fusion plasmas. These instabilities are often triggered by the large difference in electron and ion drift velocities in the E×B direction. The possibility of maintaining a large electric field in the quasineutral plasma of Hall thrusters despite anomalous electron transport, or the presence of strong double layers associated with the azimuthal rotation of plasma structures (“rotating spokes”) in magnetron discharges and Hall thrusters are examples of the very challenging and exciting physics of E×B devices. The turbulence and instabilities present in E×B plasma devices constitute a major obstacle to the quantitative description of these devices and to the development of predictive codes and are the subject of intense research efforts. In this tutorial, we discuss the key aspects of the physics of low-temperature partially magnetized E×B plasmas, as well as recent advances made through simulations, theory, and experiments in our understanding of the various types of instabilities (such as gradient-drift/Simon-Hoh and lower hybrid instabilities, rotating ionization waves, electron cyclotron drift instability, modified two-stream instability, etc.) that occur in these plasmas.

Low-frequency instabilities are often present in Hall thrusters and are associated with axial and/or azimuthal oscillations of plasma non-uniformities. The axial oscillations are related to the so-called breathing mode (periodic depletion of the neutral atom density due to ionization) and are associated with large amplitude current oscillations. The low-frequency azimuthal instabilities are characterized by local non-uniformities of the light emission rotating in the azimuthal direction and are generally called “rotating spokes.” The possibility of coexistence of these two modes has been discussed in the literature but without clear experimental evidence of their correlation. In this paper, we present for the first time simultaneous measurements of the axial and azimuthal positions of the spoke. These measurements have been obtained with a high-speed camera using a triangulation method based on parallax. This method has proven to be sufficiently sensitive to track the 3D position (r–θ–z) of local non-uniformities of the light emission. The optical method has been synchronized with measurements of the current on a segmented anode. The results show that under some conditions, breathing oscillations and spoke rotation in the E×B direction are coupled. During the current rise, the spoke moves from the anode region toward the channel exhaust region while rotating in the E×B direction and seems to follow the movement of the front of neutral atoms progressively filling the channel. About 60% ± 20% of the total anode current is carried by the spoke.