Research on the method of dual-frequency microwave diagnosis of plasma for solving phase integer ambiguity

In this work, microwaves and terahertz waves have performed a dual-frequency combined diagnosis in high-temperature, large-scale plasma. According to the attenuation and phase shift of electromagnetic waves in the plasma, the electron density and collision frequency of the plasma can be inversely calculated. However, when the plasma size is large and the electron density is high, the phase shift of the electromagnetic wave is large (multiple times 2π period). Due to the limitations of the test equipment, the true phase shift is difficult to test accurately or to recover reality. That is, there is a problem of phase integer ambiguity. In order to obtain a phase shift of less than 180°, a higher electromagnetic wave frequency (terahertz wave with 890 GHz) is used for diagnosis. However, the attenuation of the terahertz wave diagnosis is too small (less than 0.1 dB), only the electron density can be obtained, and the collision frequency cannot be accurately obtained. Therefore, a combined diagnosis was carried out by combining two frequencies (microwave with 36 GHz, terahertz wave with 890 GHz) to obtain electron density and collision frequency. The diagnosis result shows that the electron density is in the range of (0.65–1.5) ×10¹⁹ m⁻³, the collision frequency is in the range of 0.65–2 GHz, and the diagnostic accuracy is about 60%.