Abstract
THE Thomson scattering of light by free electrons has not yet been observed in a laboratory plasma—the cross-section for the process is small and until recently no suitable source of light has been available. The advent of a very bright monochromatic light source in the form of the optical maser has markedly changed the situation, however, and in this communication a method is proposed for measuring the temperature and the relative density of electrons in a plasma from the Doppler broadening and the intensity of light scattered from an optical maser beam.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Collins, R. J., and Nelson, D. F., paper presented at a Conference on Optical Instruments and Techniques, London, July 1961.
See Chandrasekhar, S., Radiative Transfer, Chap. 12 (Oxford Univ. Press, 1950).
Maiman, T. H., Phys. Rev., 123, 1145 (1961).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
HUGHES, T. A New Method for the Determination of Plasma Electron Temperature and Density from Thomson Scattering of an Optical Maser Beam. Nature 194, 268–269 (1962). https://doi.org/10.1038/194268b0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/194268b0
- Springer Nature Limited
This article is cited by
-
Propagation of sound and spectrally resolved rayleigh scattering in weakly ionized plasmas
Applied Physics (1975)
-
Laser scattering with a rapidly tuned dye laser
Applied Physics (1975)
-
Measuring the electronic temperature of plasmas from the laser radiation scattering
Journal of Applied Spectroscopy (1966)
-
Time-Resolved Interferometry of Ruby Laser Emission
Nature (1962)