Helicon wave excitation with helical antennas

Components of the wave magnetic field in a helicon discharge have been measured with a single-turn, coaxial magnetic probe. Left- and right-handed helical antennas, as well as plane-polarized antennas, were used; and the results were compared with the field patterns computed for a nonuniform plasma. The results show that the right-hand circularly polarized mode is preferentially excited with all antennas, even those designed to excite the left-hand mode. For right-hand excitation, the radial amplitude profiles are in excellent agreement with computations.