Evolution of magnetically rotating arc into large area arc plasma

An arc channel tends to shrink due to its conductivity increasing with the increase of temperature. In this study, to generate large area arc plasma, we construct a magnetically rotating arc plasma generator, which mainly consists of a lanthanide tungsten cathode (13 mm in diameter), a concentric cylindrical graphite anode chamber (60 mm in diameter) and a solenoid coil for producing an axial magnet field. By controlling the cold gas flow, the magnetically rotating arc evolves from constricted mode to diffuse mode, which almost fills the whole arc chamber cross section. Results show that the diffuse arc plasma has better uniformity and stability. The formation mechanism of large area arc plasma is discussed in this paper.