Plasma properties of the DC glow discharge in wire ion plasma source

A wire ion plasma source consists of a thin wire anode and a coaxially-set cylindrical cathode with end plates having central apertures. This electrode configuration enables the production of high-density plasma applying very low voltage for the initiation of discharge. We investigated the plasma properties of the de glow discharge in the wire ion plasma source. The electron temperature and electron number density were measured using a typical Langmuir probe. Furthermore, we adopted both the Druyvesteyn method and a spectroscopic method coupled with a collisional-radiative model in order to estimate the effective electron temperature for the non-maxwellian case.