Curling probe measurement of electron density in pulse-modulated plasma

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The electron density ne of stationary plasma can be easily obtained on the basis of the resonance frequency f of a curling probe (CP) measured by a network analyzer (NWA). However, in pulsed plasma with discharge period T, the ne and f values periodically change with time. This study extends the conventional CP technique to a time-resolved measurement of the pulse-modulated electron density. The condition necessary for the measurement is revealed to be synchronization of NWA with the pulse modulation, which is expressed as (n − 1)T/TSWP = integer (1, 2, …) for a number n of data point and sweep time TSWP.