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In recent years, interest in striation phenomena in radio frequency (rf) discharges has risen due to the availability of new experimental data and the implementation of new computational models. Depending on the conditions, different mechanisms of discharge striations are realized. These are the ionization instability, the instability due to the electron attachment to electronegative gases, or the instability due to thermoelectric transport. Although the first two mechanisms were modeled quite extensively in recent years, the understanding of the influence of the Dufour effect originating from plasma density gradients on the stability of radio frequency discharges in long tubes remains poor. In this paper, the influence of this mechanism on the longitudinal striations of radio frequency discharge is presented using a one-dimensional model of argon discharge driven with rf excitation under intermediate pressure conditions of 0.5 Torr. It is found that striation formation is sensitive to the value of the thermoelectric heat transport coefficient in the low electron temperature range. The critical value of this coefficient necessary for the instability onset is derived using the linear stability analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of driving frequency in the range of 13.56–73 MHz on electron energy distribution and electron heating modes in a 50 mTorr capacitively coupled argon plasma discharge is studied using 1D-3V particle-in-cell simulations. Calculated electron energy probability functions exhibit three distinct "temperatures" for low-, mid-, and high-energy electrons at all the studied driving frequencies. When compared to published experimental data, the calculated probability functions show a reasonable agreement for the energy range resolved in the measurements (about 2–10 eV). Discrepancies due to limitations in experimental energy resolution outside this range lead to differences between computational and experimental values of the electron number density determined from the distribution functions, and the predicted effective electron temperature is within 25% of experimental values. The impedance of the discharge is interpreted in terms of a homogeneous equivalent circuit model, and the driving frequency dependence of the inferred combined sheath thickness is found to obey a known, theoretically derived, power law. The average power transferred from the field to the electrons (electron heating) is computed, and a region of negative heating near the sheath edge, particularly at higher driving frequencies, is identified. Analysis of the electron momentum equation shows that electron inertia, which on temporal averaging would be zero in a linear regime, is responsible for negative values of power deposition near the sheath edge at high driving frequencies due to the highly nonlinear behavior of the discharge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plasma asymmetry generation in capacitively coupled plasma (CCP) discharges provides control over vital parameters that are useful in many plasma processing applications. In this article, using the particle-in-cell simulation technique, we investigated the spatial plasma asymmetry creation by a temporally asymmetric (sawtooth) waveform by varying its number of harmonics (N). The simulation results predict a non-linear increase in the plasma density and ion flux with an increase in N, i.e., it first decreases, reaching to a minimum value for a critical value of N and then increases almost linearly with a further rise in N. The ionization asymmetry increases with N, and higher harmonics on the instantaneous sheath position are observed for higher values of N. These higher harmonics generate multiple ionization beams that are generated near the expanding sheath edge and are responsible for an enhanced plasma density. The ion energy distribution function (IEDF) depicts a bi-modal shape for different values of N. DC self-bias is observed on the powered electrode, its magnitude with respect to the plasma potential decreases with increasing N, and therefore, the corresponding ion energy on the powered electrode decreases. The results conclude that by changing N of a sawtooth waveform in a collisionless CCP system, the ion flux asymmetry is not altered, whereas sheath symmetry could be significantly affected causing a systematic variation in the ion energy asymmetry. Due to an increase in the higher harmonic contents in the sawtooth waveform, a transition from broad bi-modal to narrow-shaped IEDFs is found. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A high efficiency of power coupling from the incident microwave to the discharge is a general demand for large-scale and high-power applications of microwave plasma torches. This paper aims to experimentally explore the possibility of improving the power coupling efficiency by choosing a proper glass tube in a microwave plasma torch with a metallic enclosure, rather than using additional tuning measures such as a movable short-circuited ending plunger or a three-stub tuner. The power coupling efficiencies for the glass tubes with different wall thicknesses were experimentally measured under different incident microwave powers and different pressures. The results showed that the power coupling efficiency was improved with the increase in the glass tube wall thickness in a wide range of operating conditions for the microwave plasma torch with specific dimensions. An efficiency higher than 85% can be achieved once the wall thickness of the glass tube is in a particular range. This indicates that external tuning measures can be reduced for the microwave plasma torch with a proper glass tube, which helps to save the cost of tuning devices and enhance the flexibility in different working environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the initial phase of microwave (MW) power launch inside a MW discharge ion source (MDIS), plasma and the total electric field (MW and ambipolar) are evolved with time together in the volume. In the presence of a plasma gradient, an ambipolar electric field is generated which interacts with the MW electric field forming a resultant total electric field which continuously varies during this evolution period. The spatio-temporal evolution pattern inside the MDIS volume is reported here, highlighting the role of the total electric field in power coupling processes. The Finite Element Method (FEM) is used to calculate the evolutions of the electric field and power coupling processes. Unlike a Particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision or a hybrid fluid, here, the FEM model uses time dependent Poisson solver through the drift-diffusion approach. It is observed that the main power coupling mechanism is the electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) method; however with the evolution of plasma, the mode shifts from ECR to off-ECR type heating with time. Off-ECR heating in the form of the upper-hybrid resonance method and the electrostatic ion acoustic wave heating method are two important heating mechanisms during the over-dense plasma condition, when the plasma density is above the critical density for a launched MW frequency, 2.45 GHz. In addition, the shifting of heating mechanisms from ECR to off-ECR methods is discussed based on the 3D maps of spatio-temporal evolution of plasma density and hot electron temperature. Furthermore, simulated temporal hot electron temperature and plasma density values are validated with the experiment under a similar configuration and an operating environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reactive nitrogen-carbon plasma generated by electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) microwave discharge of N2 gas and pulsed laser ablation of a graphite target was characterized spectroscopically by time-integrated and time-resolved optical emission spectroscopy with space resolution for a study of gas-phase reactions and molecular radical formation in the plasma. The plasma exhibits very high reactivity compared with the plasma generated solely by ECR discharge or by pulsed laser ablation and contains highly excited species originally present in the ambient gaseous environment and directly ablated from the target as well as formed as the products of gas-phase reactions occurring in the plasma. The space distribution and the time evolution of the plasma emission give an access to the gas-phase reactions for the formation of C2 and CN radicals, revealing that C2 radicals are formed mainly in the region near the target while CN radicals can be formed in a much larger region not only in the vicinity of the target, but especially in the region near a substrate far away from the target. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]