Effect of filament supports on emissive probe measurements

We have constructed an emissive probe with a thin tungsten filament spot-welded across two nickel wires insulated with ceramic paint. We show that the ceramic supports covering the nickel wires have a large effect on the potential measurements in low-density plasmas. It is found that the potential measured by the emissive probe is more negative than the potential derived from a Langmuir probe current-voltage (I-V) characteristic curve when the plasma density is so low that the emitting filament remains immersed in the sheaths of the ceramic supports. The length of the filament L needs to be larger than about 2 Debye lengths (L > 2λ(De)) in order to avoid the influence of the ceramic supports and to achieve reliable plasma potential measurements using emissive probes.