Basic studies of the generation and collective motion of pair-ion plasmas

A fullerene pair-ion plasma without electrons is generated and electrostatic modes propagating along magnetic-field lines are externally excited in the range of low frequencies. It is found that four kinds of wave modes, including theoretically unexpected ones, exist in the plasma, and the phase lag between the density fluctuations of positive and negative ions strongly depends on the frequency. In order to illuminate further collective motion of pair-ion plasmas in the range of high frequencies, a concept of a hydrogen pair-ion plasma consisting of only H+ and H- is proposed and an experimental configuration is presented. On the basis of the production of a hydrogen plasma by Penning ionization gauge discharge, the principles of ion cyclotron resonance and ExB drift motion are shown to be effective for ion-species analysis/selection and separated electron detection from negative ions in the generation of pure hydrogen pair-ion plasmas. (C) 2007 American Institute of Physics.