Design of a helicon plasma source for ion–ion plasma production

•Development of a helicon plasma system to carry out ion–ion plasma studies in electronegative gases such as Hydrogen, Oxygen and Chlorine.•Determination of initial parameters of helicon plasma source for ion–ion plasma by using dispersion relation of bounded helicon waves.•Design and development of solenoid with magnetic field strength production capability of ∼ 600G along the axis of the chamber.•Optimization of the chamber parameters using Helic codes and estimation of optimum attainable density.•Estimation of RF power requirements for various gases. A helicon plasma system is being designed and developed at CPP-IPR. The design parameters of the system are deduced from the dispersion relation of bounded helicon waves and the required magnetic fields are simulated by using Poisson Superfish code. The Helic code is used to simulate the power deposition profile for various conditions and to investigate the optimum values of chamber parameters for effective coupling of radio frequency (RF) power to plasma. The helicon source system is aimed at carrying out ion–ion plasma studies in electronegative gases such as Hydrogen, Oxygen and Chlorine. The system mainly consists of a source chamber in which helicon plasma will be produced by injecting RF power at a frequency of 13.56MHz through a right helical antenna in presence of a DC magnetic field followed by an expansion chamber in which it is expected to produce negative ions along with the positive ions. Installation of the various parts of the system is in progress. The details of the design and development of the system is presented in this article.