1100 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 33, NO.

3, JUNE 2005

An Equivalent Circuit Model of a

Plasma Core Inductor
Sudarshan Rao Nelatury, Senior Member, IEEE, Thomas Lee Hemminger, Senior Member, IEEE, and
Matthew N. O. Sadiku, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract—The impedance of an electrical coil wound over a flu-

orescent tube is found experimentally both when the tube is ener-
gized and de-energized. This paper reports results showing a sig-
nificant change in the resonance characteristics of the coil due to
the influence of the plasma core. The effects are described with the
help of an equivalent circuit consisting of an inductance with a se-
ries resistance and a parallel capacitance. This paper demonstrates
that by energizing the core, the series resistance and shunt capac-
itance in the equivalent circuit increase significantly. The experi-
ment is performed both for alternating current and direct current
excitations. From the observed results, fractional changes in the
resonant characteristics are found and explained using a perturba-
tional viewpoint. This enables us to indirectly estimate the plasma
density profile and model the beam loading effects in high-energy
radio frequency sources. The equivalent circuit model presented Fig. 1. Induction plasma torch.
here can be employed to explain the macroscopic effect of low-tem-
perature plasma on circuit elements within close proximity.
plasma torch, the plasma is produced and sustained by induction
Index Terms—Equivalent circuit, inductive plasma, plasma from a time varying magnetic field generated by an induction
loading, T-8 fluorescent tube. coil, as shown in Fig. 1. The coil design is found to affect both
the temperature field and the flow field and to have a significant
I. INTRODUCTION effect on the reaction kinetics in the torch. The rigorous math-
ematical analysis involving Maxwell’s and heat transfer equa-

F OR almost a century, gas discharge plasmas have been a

subject of serious concern that resulted in numerous con-
sumer and industrial applications [1], [2]. It can be said that the
development of atomic physics at the end of 19th century was
virtually synonymous with the gas discharge physics. During
the second half of the 20th century, much attention was paid to-
ward thermonuclear fusion and space plasma physics. Reactive,
nonequilibrium plasmas have enjoyed a considerable revival of
interest and attention from technologies concerned with elec-
tronic materials processing and increasingly from the plasma
physics community.
There are many important applications of partially ionized
gases. One of the opportunities in the field of applied plasma
science is in the development of models that can be used for
large-scale simulations of industrial tools. For some period, em-
pirical methods have been implemented to design, develop, and
control plasma-processing devices. With the advent of powerful
computers, several numerical techniques have been proposed to
analyze and design plasma technology like inductively coupled
plasma torches for industrial applications [3]. In an induction
Manuscript received August 26, 2004; revised January 7, 2005.
S. R. Nelatury and T. L. Hemminger are with the School of Engineering and
Engineering Technology, Pennsylvania State University, Behrend College, Erie,
PA 16563-1701 USA.
M. N. O. Sadiku is with the College of Engineering, Prairie View A&M Uni-
versity, Prairie View, TX 77446 USA.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/TPS.2005.848618
0093-3813/$20.00 © 2005 IEEE
tions for the electromagnetic fields, and for the plasma flow pa-
rameters can be supplemented by an equivalent circuit model
[4]. It has been stated that numerical simulations have virtually
no impact on industrial practices in this field [2]. The equivalent
circuit approach is much simpler and can furnish a physical un-
derstanding of the effects of the plasma.
This paper provides an equivalent circuit of a coil having
an ionized plasma core. First, we shall start with the equiva-
lent circuit of an ordinary air-core coil of known dimensions
and number of turns, then modify the same when the core be-
comes ionized plasma. Close agreement is found between the
impedance measured and that calculated from the equivalent cir-
cuit. Even though our approach is limited to a particular set of
core parameters, it is a reasonable first step in approximating
plasma coils with equivalent circuits. As we are interested in
the influence of plasma on the coil, we have taken a simple coil
of copper wire wound on an ordinary fluorescent tube and ex-
perimentally obtained the impedance results both when the tube
is de-energized and energized with alternating current (ac), as
well as direct current (dc) excitation. The equivalent circuit dis-
cussed here appears quite accurate in representing the effects of
the plasma core.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section II deals
with the equivalent circuit of an ordinary air core coil and the
modification proposed for a plasma core. In Section III, the ex-
perimental results are given. Conclusions are provided in Sec-
tion IV.
NELATURY et al.: AN EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT MODEL OF A PLASMA CORE INDUCTOR
Fig. 2. Equivalent circuit of an air-core coil.
II. EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT
The equivalent circuit of a coil in its simplest form consists of
an inductance , in series with an ohmic resistance . Since the
physical geometry of the conducting surface of the coil is associ-
ated with some stray capacitance in parallel, the circuit shown in
Fig. 2 can be accepted to represent the overall impedance char-
acteristics.
With the capacitance in parallel, the coil essentially exhibits
a resonance characteristic at frequency
(1)
When the values of and are very small, the above can be
approximated as
(2)
If the length, radius, number of turns, and the core of the coil are
, , , and air, respectively, its inductance can be approxi-
mated by
(3)
where is the permeability of air or free space. Equation (3) is
acceptable for longer and tightly wound coils. Shorter coils have
greater flux leakage, and hence, a lower value of inductance [5].
If the core of the coil is any other homogenous isotropic mag-
netic substance with a permeability , the formula for induc-
tance in (3) would change accordingly. Also, if the coil is made
of a conductor of conductivity , diameter , and number of
turns , the resistance is [4]
(4)
at a frequency in Hz. The presence of in the above
expression is due to the skin effect. The gauge of the wire deter-
mines the value of (4 in case of AWG #27). At resonance, the
terminal impedance of the coil is real, say , and is given by
(5)
1101
Knowing , , , we can get and from (1) and (5).
Conversely, if we know , , and , we can get and .
With a slight algebraic manipulation of the terms in (1) and (5),
the quantity permits us to write
and as
(6)
(7)
Now if the core of the coil is plasma, the equivalent circuit
in Fig. 2 needs to be modified. The plasma we are using in
the present work is not generated by high coil current at radio
frequency (RF) frequencies, but it is just the ionized plasma
of a fluorescent tube with a dc voltage within the manufac-
turer’s ratings in one experiment, and it is operated from a 60-Hz
power line in a second experiment. The idea of using the fluores-
cent light also has the significance that they are ubiquitous and
are fixed in residential, commercial, and nearly all institutional
buildings without any obstruction for proper functioning. So it
is also of interest to know their effect on a circuit component
such as a coil in close proximity. An instance of their interfer-
ence on personal communication systems is found in [8].
The standard fluorescent tube used in the USA is called a
“T-12 tube.” This tube, although the most common, is in the
process of being replaced by a more energy efficient element
called a “T-8 tube” with a 1–in diameter. They are filled with
both mercury (Hg) at a pressure of 3–10 mtorr and argon (Ar)
gas at a pressure of a few torr. The electron emission from the
cathode causes the excitation of the Hg atoms, which in turn
results in the emission of 253.7 nm ultraviolet (UV) radiation.
The UV radiation is converted into visible light by phosphor
coating on the interior tube wall. The background Ar gas serves
to enhance the ionization efficiency of Hg and to establish and
sustain the arc discharge in the tube. The interaction of the tube
with the coil can best be described by the permittivity of the gas
mixture in the tube [9], [10]. The electron density , is found
based on , where is the current density (typically
493.38 for a T-8 tube with a line current of 250 mA) and
is the electron charge . The electron drift ve-
locity can be found from the known parameters and the mobility
[1], however, in this work, we made a reasonable approximation
of 1% of its thermal velocity , which depends on the electron
temperature [8]. With a typical gas discharge electron temper-
ature of 2 eV, is calculated to be about 6000 m/s. With these
figures, an electron density cm is obtained.
Indeed, an arbitrary choice of the temperature and drift velocity
makes the density calculations questionable. However, the ob-
servations reported in this paper are useful for understanding
the relative changes. The weakly ionized gas in the lamp can be
considered as a cold plasma, therefore, the dielectric constant
is a function of frequency and is specified by the well-known
expression
(8)
1102
Fig. 3. Relative permittivity of the ionized plasma in a typical T-8 versus
frequency at a plasma current of 250 mA.
where is the plasma frequency in hertz. This can be written
in terms of free space permittivity and mass of the electron
as [8]
(9)
With the estimated electron density cm ,
the plasma frequency of the T-8 is nearly 6.43 GHz and the
relative permittivity is plotted in Fig. 3.
Note that for frequencies much greater than the plasma fre-
quency, the ionized medium acts like free space with a relative
permittivity of unity, but for frequencies below , the plasma
reflects the fields and acts like an electrical barrier. We wish to
focus on the effect of the plasma on the impedance character-
istics of the coil at frequencies lower than . This can be ac-
complished by modeling the coil and plasma system as a trans-
former. This idea dates back to Thomson [11], and even recently,
it has been successfully used in [4]. According to this approach,
the mutual coupling between the plasma and the coil results in
an equivalent impedance which, when reflected to the coil cir-
cuit can be attributed as an additional series resistance and
a parallel capacitance , as shown in Fig. 4 within the ovals.
The resistance is a measure of plasma loading on the coil.
The capacitance is characterized as an increase of the par-
allel stray capacitance because the core of the coil is no longer
air but a conducting medium. Both of these values are assumed
to be proportional to the electron density in the plasma, which
actually has a nonuniform profile, but can be approximately
taken as uniform. and are proportional to the root mean
square (rms) current through the plasma [4]. Thus, we model
them as
(10)
(11)
In Section III, the validity of this postulate is verified experimen-
tally, yielding additional verification of the proposed equivalent
circuit model. The impedance values of the coil measured at
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 33, NO. 3, JUNE 2005
Fig. 4. Modified equivalent circuit of the coil with plasma core.
various frequencies are compared with those obtained by calcu-
lating them for the equivalent circuit shown in Fig. 4.
III. EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS
The details of the experiment are now provided. A coil of
approximately turns made of AWG #27 copper wire
is wound on a fluorescent tube (T-8) over a length of 17.8 cm
(about 7 in). The wire has a diameter of 0.36 mm (0.0142 in).
The inductance of the coil is about 640 . For this experi-
ment, assuming , (3) yields a result that is within 1.4%
of the measured value. This is because the coil is relatively long
and tightly wound over the core. The dc resistance of the wire
is 6.025 . These values were calculated and then confirmed
by measurement with a digital inductance–capacitance–resis-
tance (LCR) meter. The actual stray capacitance is small, so to
be able to measure observable resonance we added a capaci-
tance of 1.049 nF in parallel to the coil. The capacitance at the
terminals was then measured to be 1.082 nF. The coil is con-
nected to a function generator and the voltage across the coil
and current through the coil (with the help of a 1- series re-
sistance) are measured at various frequencies. The magnitude of
the impedance versus frequency is plotted both when the tube is
turned off and when it is turned on at input line voltages of 120 V
ac 60 Hz, and also dc after the former is full-wave rectified and
filtered. The voltage across the tube in these two cases is 57 and
62 V, respectively. There is a significant drop across the choke
in the ac case. The plasma current in the tube for these voltages
is 258 and 163 mA, respectively. The measured impedance is
plotted in Fig. 5.
With the core energized, the resonant frequency and terminal
resistance at resonance were measured. The total series resis-
tance and shunt capacitance were found using (6) and (7). These
values were used to calculate the impedance of the equivalent
circuit as illustrated in Fig. 5 by the dotted lines. The significant
changes in resonance characteristics can be modeled with the
modified values of series resistance and shunt capacitance, as
predicted in the preceding section. The figure illustrates a very
strong fit between the measured values of impedance and the
NELATURY et al.: AN EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT MODEL OF A PLASMA CORE INDUCTOR
Fig. 5. Impedance magnitude as a function of frequency. “x” indicates when
tube is off, “.” when tube is excited by ac from the power line with a line current
of 258 mA, and “o” when the tube is excited by dc with a line current is 163
mA. Dotted lines represent interpolated values of the impedance magnitude,
using the equivalent circuit parameters in each case.
TABLE I
TERMINAL CHARACTERISTICS OF PLASMA CORE INDUCTOR
experimental model in the three cases shown in Fig. 5. The re-
sults are summarized in Table I, where it can be seen that the
plasma has a significant and predictable effect on the resonant
frequency, and hence, on the equivalent model of the inductor.
To verify the relationship in (10) and (11), the experiment is
repeated for different values of dc current through the plasma
tube, varying the current between 50–300 mA dc. With the help
of a variac, the input line voltage is adjusted and then fullwave
rectified and filtered before it is fed to the tube. The resonant fre-
quency and terminal resistance at resonance have been noted for
these current values. Equations (6) and (7) were used to estimate
the net values of series resistance and shunt capacitance. Sub-
tracting the ohmic resistance and the original shunt capacitance
from these numbers, the differential values of and were
estimated and plotted in Fig. 6. The linear relationship assumed
in the (10) and (11), is found by regression on the observations
as
(12)
(13)
where is the estimated plasma loading resistance in ohms,
is the estimated capacitance in picofarad, and is the
plasma current in milliamperes. It should be noted that (12) and
(13) are valid for operating range of only. The y-intercepts
arise from regression and only have numerical significance. The
correlation coefficients in (12) and (13) are found to be 0.8660
1103
Fig. 6. Plasma loading as a function of plasma current in mA.
and 0.9843, respectively. A linear relationship is also predicted
in [4] which helps substantiate the proposed model. From the
fact that , where , , , are, respectively,
the density, electron charge, average drift velocity of the elec-
trons, and cross-sectional area of the plasma tube, we find that
the plasma beam loading parameters are related to the density.
When the experiment is repeated by powering the plasma tube
by ac, we found changes in the impedance of the coil, but the
changes in resonant frequency around 164 kHz are not promi-
nent. Xiao and Mo [7] reported that the resonant frequency
in case of Dielectric Cerenkov resonator filled with a periodic
plasma grating did not change much but they did observe a sig-
nificant change in the Q of the cavity. Our experience with ac
has confirmed this, but when the tube is powered by dc, we ob-
served a downshift in resonant frequency as reported by Hafizi
and Gold [6].
IV. PERTURBATIONAL INTERPRETATION
A further step can be taken to interpret the aforementioned
observations using a perturbational view point. Perturbational
methods are useful for calculating changes in some quantity due
to small changes in the problem. One might estimate possible
changes in the resonance and quality factor of a general cavity
by computing the fractional change in resonant frequency due
to perturbed values of the electric and magnetic field quantities.
Let the variables , and , represent the electric field,
magnetic field and resonant frequency of the original cavity
and , and , represent the same quantities in the perturbed
cavity. The effect on the resonant frequency can be represented
by [12]
(14)
where the left-hand side of this quantity is fractional change in
the resonant frequency . Suppose we ignore
the changes in permeability of the medium and further assume
1104
Fig. 7. (a) Fractional change in the resonant frequency versus that in the capacitance. (b) Calculated plasma density. Note that there is a down shift in the resonant
frequency with increasing n due to beam loading [6].
that the plasma column is a homogenous medium with permit-
tivity being spatially uniform. The fractional change in the per-
mittivity can then be related to the fractional change
in the resonant frequency as
(15)
where
(16)
is a constant that represents the negative slope of the straight
line plot represented by (15). We used to indicate
the intrinsic impedance of the medium. The fractional change
in the resonant frequency versus that in the shunt capacitance in
the present lumped model is plotted in Fig. 7(a). Assuming an
electron temperature of about 2 eV, which results in average ve-
locity of 6000 m/s, we can calculate the plasma density, which
is plotted in Fig. 7(b). Note that there is a downshift in reso-
nant frequency with increasing due to beam loading. Strictly
speaking, even the electron temperature would also change, but
that is not considered in this work.
V. CONCLUSION
This paper proposes an equivalent circuit for a plasma core
inductor. The model was developed by observing the resonant
frequency and impedance characteristics of the coil using a T-8
fluorescent tube as the plasma core. An increase in the plasma
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 33, NO. 3, JUNE 2005
density is found to bring about a downshift in the resonant fre-
quency in case of dc excitation. The overall effect is an added se-
ries resistance and shunt capacitance proportional to the plasma
current. This representation permits us to employ equations (12)
and (13) to include circuit elements with a relatively simple cur-
rent measurement of the core. It is very likely this concept can be
extended to similar plasma devices, and even at other frequen-
cies, as well, wherein resonant circuits are realized as cavities.
Our approach provides an experimental method of evaluating
plasma parameters indirectly just as how one might arrive at
the same conclusions by employing Maxwell’s equations,
heat transfer theory, and science of plasma physics. This
model should provide a useful approximation of the effects
of low-temperature plasma on coil inductance and provide a
starting point for further work on the effects of plasma tubes on
surrounding circuit elements. Plasma core modeling is useful in
the analysis and design of inductively coupled plasma torches,
and in understanding the effects of fluorescent lighting on
electromagnetically sensitive technology. It can be employed
in certain areas of plasma science, for example, semiconductor
manufacturing, and design of high energy RF sources like the
magnicon to understand the effects of beam loading.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors are grateful to Dr. S. Gitomer for his valuable
suggestions. The authors also acknowledge the helpful com-
ments of the reviewers.
NELATURY et al.: AN EQUIVALENT CIRCUIT MODEL OF A PLASMA CORE INDUCTOR
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Sudarshan Rao Nelatury (M’00–SM’02) received
the B.Tech. degree from Jawaharlal Nehru Techno-
logical University, Hyderabad, India, in 1981 and the
M.E. and Ph.D. degrees from Osmania University,
Hyderabad, in 1985 and 1996, respectively.
From 1983 to 1999, he taught at the Department
of Electronics and Communication Engineering,
Osmania University. During 1999–2003, he was
a Visiting Faculty Member at the Electrical and
Computer Engineering Department, Villanova
University, Villanova, PA. Presently, he is with the
Department of Electrical, Computer, and Software Engineering, at the School
of Engineering and Engineering Technology, Pennsylvania State University,
Behrend College, Erie. His research interests include electromagnetics and
digital signal processing.
Dr. Nelatury is a Life Member of the Institution of Electronics and Telecom-
munication Engineers (IETE) and the International Society for Technical Edu-
cation (ISTE), and a Member of American Society for Engineering Education
(ASEE).
1105
Thomas Lee Hemminger (S’87–M’92–SM’05) re-
ceived the B.S. degree from Cleveland State Univer-
sity, Cleveland, OH, in 1985, the M.S. degree from
Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, in 1988, and the
Ph.D. degree from Case Western Reserve University,
Cleveland, in 1992, all in electrical engineering.
He is currently an Associate Professor at the
Pennsylvania State University, Behrend College,
Erie. His research interests include multidimensional
signal processing, spectral analysis, imaging sys-
tems, electromagnetic properties of materials, and
neural networks. He presently devotes much of his activities to the development
of routing algorithms in communications networks and to the application of
neural networks for industrial optimization problems.
Dr. Hemminger is a Vice-Chair of the Erie Section of the IEEE.
Matthew N. O. Sadiku (S’82–M’88–SM’90) was
born at Shagamu, Nigeria on May 17, 1955. He
received the B.Sc. degree from Ahmadu Bello
University, Zaria, Nigeria, in 1978, and the M.Sc.
and Ph.D. degrees from Tennessee Technological
University, Cookeville, TN, in 1982 and 1984,
respectively.
From 1984 to 1988, he was an Assistant Professor
at Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, where he
did graduate work in computer science. From 1988
to 2000, he was at Temple University, Philadelphia,
PA, where he became a Full Professor. From 2000 to 2002, he was with Lu-
cent/Avaya, Holmdel, NJ as a System Engineer and with Boeing Satellite Sys-
tems as a Senior Scientist. He is presently a Professor at Prairie View A&M
University, Prairie View, TX. He is the author of over 130 professional pa-
pers and over 20 books including Elements of Eletromagnetics, 3rd ed. (Ox-
ford. U.K.: Oxford Univ. Press, 2001), Fundamentals of Electric Circuits with
C. Alexander, 2nd ed., (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2000), Numerical Techniques
in Electromagnetics 2nd ed., (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 2001), and Metropolitan
Area Networks (Boca Raton: CRC Press, 1995). Some of his books have been
translated into Korean, Chinese (and Chinese Long Form in Taiwan), Italian,
Portuguese, and Spanish. His current research interests are in the areas of nu-
merical modeling of electromagnetic systems and computer communication net-
works.
Dr. Sadiku was the IEEE Region 2 Student Activities Committee Chairman.
He was an Associate Editor for IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON EDUCATION. He was
the recipient of the 2000 McGraw-Hill/Jacob Millman Award for outstanding
contributions in the field of electrical engineering.