Studying the Electric Field Near a Plasma Globe
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Studying the Electric Field Near a Plasma Globe Part of a Series of Activities in Plasma/Fusion Physics to Accompany the chart Fusion: Physics of a Fundamental Energy Source Teacher's Notes Robert Reiland, Shady Side Academy, Pittsburgh, PA Chair, Plasma Activities Development Committee of the Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) Editorial assistance: G. Samuel Lightner, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA and Vice-President of Plasma/Fusion Division of CPEP Advice and assistance: T. P. Zaleskiewicz, University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, Greensburg, PA and President of CPEP Prepared with support from the Department of Energy, Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, Contract #DE-AC02-76CH03073. ©2002 Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP) Preface This activity is intended for use in high school and introductory college courses to supplement the topics on the Teaching Chart, Fusion: Physics of a Fundamental Energy Source, produced by the Contemporary Physics Education Project (CPEP). CPEP is a non-profit organization of teachers, educators, and physicists which develops materials related to the current understanding of the nature of matter and energy, incorporating the major findings of the past three decades. CPEP also sponsors many workshops for teachers. See the homepage www.CPEPweb.org for more information on CPEP, its projects and the teaching materials available. The activity packet consists of the student activity and these notes for the teacher. The Teacher’s Notes include background information, equipment information, expected results, and answers to the questions that are asked in the student activity. The student activity is self-contained so that it can be copied and distributed to students. Teachers may reproduce parts of the activity for their classroom use as long as they include the title and copyright statement. Page and figure numbers in the Teacher’s Notes are labeled with a T prefix, while there are no prefixes in the student activity. Developed in conjunction with the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and funded through the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences, U.S. Department of Energy, this activity has been field tested at workshops with high school and college teachers. We would like feedback on this activity. Please send any comments to: Robert Reiland Shady Side Academy 423 Fox Chapel Road Pittsburgh, PA 15238 e-mail: [email protected] voice: 412-968-3049 Studying the Electric Field Near a Plasma Globe Teacher’s Notes Part of a Series of Activities in Plasma/Fusion Physics to Accompany the chart Fusion: Physics of a Fundamental Energy Source Introduction: This activity complements the plasma/fusion activity “The Physics of Plasma Globes”* which concentrated on analyzing the spectra in a plasma globe. However, in that activity, students were encouraged to “play” with the plasma globe. As part of the “playing” they would discover that its is possible to get sparks to jump from a metal disk (such as a coin) placed on the globe to a pointed conductor or even your finger, indicating the presence of an electric field. The focus of this activity is that electric field. Equipment and Materials: "Nebula Ball" Plasma Globe or equivalent (In stores such as Radio Shack, from supply houses such as Arbor Scientific, and through the internet, for example at http://coolstuffcheap.com.) Electric field probe (See page 3 of Student Activity for construction details) Digital Multimeter (Science KIT 64971-02 or equivalent) Oscilloscope – best is a 20 MHz one similar to Science KIT 45077 but others may work Optional: Tesla Coil (Science KIT 61157-02 or equivalent) Wooden dowel (at least 25 cm long) Aluminum foil (Note: See http://www.ScienceKit.com for some of these equipment references) Background and Suggestions: A plasma globe operates with a high-frequency, high voltage source that produces ionization of the gases between the central electrode and the surrounding glass of the plasma globe. The frequency of the source is typically on the order of 10,000 cycles per second (10 kHz), and the voltage is typically several thousand volts. The resulting plasma consists of electrons stripped off some of the gas atoms and molecules inside the globe plus the positive ions that are left after the removal of these electrons. The visible streamers of plasma are made of this ionized gas. The electric field produced by the source oscillates at the frequency of the source and drives the electrons and ions back and forth at this frequency. * Part of the series of activities in Plasma/Fusion physics to accompany the CPEP chart Fusion: Physics of a Fundamental Energy Source Studying the Electric Field Near a Plasma Globe – Page T2 In the first part of the activity, the students will make a “probe” of a metallic disk (for example a coin) and a wire which is connected to ground, with a gap between them. Because of the electric fields, sparks can be made to jump from the disk to the wire. In the second part, they will use an “antenna” which is connected to an a.c. voltmeter or an oscilloscope to detect the electromagnetic radiation from the plasma steamers. Since any accelerating electrically charged particle will radiate electromagnetic energy, the electrons and ions in the plasma streamers will produce radiation, and this radiation can go through the glass of the globe and be detected by antennae that respond to the electrical components of these electromagnetic fields. The kind of antenna that will respond well is one that contains charged particles that are free to move within the antenna, such as metals. Metals contain electrons which are involved in forming the metallic bonds but which are not tied to any particular atom. They are shared throughout the metal and free to move within. An oscillating electric field, such as that from the electromagnetic waves radiating from a plasma globe streamer, will push and pull on the mobile electrons in metals and cause them to oscillate back and forth. This then constitutes an alternating electrical current (a.c.) that is readily recorded by an a.c. voltmeter or an oscilloscope that is attached to the metallic antenna through a metal wire. The radiation from the plasma globe streamers has the same frequency as the plasma source. The wavelength is just the speed divided by the frequency. Then, for a frequency of around 10,000 cycles per second (10 kHz) and a speed in air of 3 x 108 m/s, the wavelength is over 10,000 meters (10 km!). Since any realistic antenna plus the wire that connects it to the meter or oscilloscope will be much smaller than this, the antenna plus wire can be considered together as the antenna that responds as a unit to the electromagnetic field. This creates a measurement problem in that the entire wire to the meter or oscilloscope will respond to the electric field simultaneously for practical purposes. This results in a measurement of electric field strength from the radiation that decreases less with distance than would be recorded by an ideal probe that would respond at one definite point in any particular measurement. There are a number of ways in which this can be minimized, but the simplest approach is to connect the free end of the wire to a wide but thin piece of metal. A simple and effective way to do this is to cut a square of aluminum foil ten to twenty centimeters on a side and clip the end of the wire to the center of the square. It won’t significantly affect the measurement if the foil is crimped and torn some in the process. To use the antenna, the plane of the foil is kept perpendicular to a line from the center of the plasma globe to the probe, or said another way, the foil should then be kept so that its plane is parallel to the tangent plane of the nearest point on the globe. With this, a much greater fraction of the energy from the plasma radiation will be received at the location of the end of the wire than will be directly received by the wire between the end and the meter or oscilloscope. If you use an oscilloscope, a typical display might use a time base of 10 μsec/div or a sweep frequency of 105 Hz. The amplitude of the signal may be as high as 1.5 volts. Studying the Electric Field Near a Plasma Globe – Page T3 There is a legitimate question about whether the meter and/or oscilloscope are measuring oscillating electric fields from the plasma streamers or simply from the electronics that is driving the streamers. Fortunately there is a simple test for this. It involves the use of a Tesla coil, which is based on the same electronics that is used to power the streamers in a plasma globe. If you have a Tesla coil, you may want to use it to demonstrate to your students that the formation of a spark or streamer adds significantly to the radiated electric field. Or you might want to have students make measurements as a function of distance from the Tesla coil with and without sparking to complement the plasma globe measurements. If you don’t have a Tesla coil, it still can be worth pointing out that while measurements made with a probe connected to an a.c. voltmeter or an oscilloscope will measure a radiated electric field when the coil is operating with no conducting object close enough for sparking to occur, simply sliding a conductor that is already close to the tip of the Tesla coil a little closer to form a spark results in an increase in readings of the radiated field of about 10% to 20%.