Measuring the plasma-wall charge by infrared spectroscopy

We show that the charge accumulated by a dielectric plasma-facing solid can be measured by infrared spectroscopy. The approach utilizes a stack of materials supporting a surface plasmon resonance in the infrared. For frequencies near the Berreman resonance of the layer facing the plasma the reflectivity dip–measured from the back of the stack, not in contact with the plasma–depends strongly on the angle of incidence making it an ideal sensor for the changes of the layer’s dielectric function due to the polarizability of the trapped surplus charges. The charge-induced shifts of the dip, both as a function of the angle and the frequency of the incident infrared light, are large enough to be measurable by attenuated total reflection setups.