Influence of centrifugal drift on mass-separation of ions of plasma flow in a curved magnetic field

Traveling of plasma flow produced with a DC arc through a transport system based on a curved magnetic field was studied. For arc with a composite cathode, principally, consisted of Cr-Fe-Ni, the profile of atoms of these elements at exit of the transport system was measured by the X-ray fluorescence spectrometry. It was found that with parameters of the transport system held constant, the plasma ions with lower m/Z were deflected more, namely Cr ions were deflected more that Fe and Ni ions. It was found as well that ions with different m/Z are shifted along binormal to the magnetic field lines in different ways that, supposedly, is due to the centrifugal drift. This effect results in the additional separation of ions of different masses in this direction.