I was working with an engineer this past weekend and we got some basic plasma generated. It was a simple apparatus to build with a nixie tube, metal wire, solder, and the high voltage inverter. It was quite safe because the plasma was generated in a container that had low pressure gas. The next trick will be to try something similar within a containment ring.
While it may take many years to actually make something useful, it does look as though the nixie tube will work as a quasi crystal chamber. So it may be useful for that application as well. The nixie tube was cheap and could be found on e-bay. The inverter was also relatively cheap. You would probably need a good 12 volts to drive it though. 9 volts may work but may not generate as intense a glow.
Further information can be found here:
http://www.daqq.eu/index.php?show=prj_plasma_nixie
***Edit****
The next step after forming a ring will be to directionally excite the plasma to move in a given direction. In theory, it would look something like this:
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