Experimental Measurments of Radial Potential Profiles in the Missouri University Spherical Ion Confiment Chamber (MUSICC) via an Emissive Probe

Summary form only given. Spherical inertial electrostatic confinement (SEC) devices could potentially be used as neutron generators for a number of applications. Since Hirsch put forward the hypothesis that a number of alternating virtual electrodes at the center of these devices could be acting as a confinement mechanism, a modest amount of research has been dedicated to verify the existence of these virtual electrodes. Although two alternating virtual electrodes are found to exist in the collisionless regime of 1D steady state models, attempts to detect double well structures experimentally have been ambiguous. Automated measurements of the radial potential profile in an SIEC at the University of Missouri-Columbia with an emissive probe constructed according to Siebenforcher and Schrittwieser are made and the results are presented and discussed here.