Particle Acceleration and Plasma Heating in the Drift Orbit Cyclotron.

The drift orbit cyclotron was investigated in detail both theoretically and experimentally. A drift orbit cyclotron was designed and constructed, and the drift orbit cyclotron (DOC) acceleration of electrons in a high vacuum was performed experimentally. Theoretical calculations using guiding center approximations match the experimental results. Improvement of acceleration efficiency was observed by using the stochastic acceleration technique. The DOC method was then applied to a cold plasma produced by electron cyclotron resonance heating, and heating of plasma electrons was observed. Electron temperature and density profiles were measured, and particle and energy confinement times were obtained.