Numerical study of atomic production rate in hydrogen negative ion sources with the effect of non-equilibrium electron energy distribution function.

Spatial non-uniformity of the dissociative hydrogen atom (H0) production has been investigated in a large negative ion source (JAEA 10 A source) with the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) obtained by a Monte-Carlo simulation code for electron transport in 3D3V (three dimensional real and velocity) space. It has been shown that the H0 production rate becomes larger in the upper region (one side in the longitudinal direction) of the source chamber. This spatial non-uniformity of the H0 production profile is mainly explained by the non-equilibrium features of the EEDF in the upper region, i.e., the EEDF consists of thermal electron component with kinetic energy [variant_greek_epsilon] < 25 eV and fast electron component with energy [variant_greek_epsilon] > 25 eV in the upper region, while the EEDF mainly consists of only thermal electrons in the bottom region. These characteristics for the EEDF and the energy dependence of cross-sections for dissociation and dissociative ionization processes lead to the non-uniform profile of the H0 production. The above numerical results of the spatial H0 non-uniformity are validated and confirmed by comparisons with those by spectroscopic measurement. It has been clarified that the non-equilibrium (fast electron) component of the EEDF has a large contribution to the non-uniformity of the H0 production rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]