In this space, visitors are invited to post any comments, questions, or skeptical observations about Philo T. Farnsworth's contributions to the field of Nuclear Fusion research.Subject: Microwave Plasma Effects
Date: Aug 21, 03:32 am
Poster: Scott StephensOn Aug 21, 03:32 am, Scott Stephens wrote:
A few years back I read about a truck driver who made an improvised radar jammer from a flourescent tube wrapped with a spiral of wire! I can tell you from experiance you can hear 120 Hz modulation if you aim a 10GHz gunn diode microwave alarm at a flourescent light. That's why they outlawed those pretty flourescent license plate lights. The solid state ballasts modulate the glowing plasma at radar-jamming frequencies ;-)
But the wire-wrapped tube functions as a repeat-back jammer. The plasma in the tube (IMHO) amplifies the incident RF like a 'traveling wave' microwave tube does.
If the microwave power is greatly increased, relativistic effects make it non-linear, even chaotic.
One of the more significant effects is the 'Wakefield' effect. If you haven't heard of it, look it up (google search). It can make tera-watt table-top particle beams a reality, producing giga-volt particle beams by accelerating charges in plasma waves.