Data Needs for Modeling Low-Temperature Non-Equilibrium Plasmas: The LXCat Project, History, Perspectives and a Tutorial

Abstract

Technologies based on non-equilibrium, low-temperature plasmas are ubiquitous in today’s society. Plasma modeling plays an essential role in their understanding, development and optimization. An accurate description of electron and ion collisions with neutrals and their transport is required to correctly describe plasma properties as a function of external parameters. LXCat is an open-access, web-based platform for storing, exchanging and manipulating data needed for modeling the electron and ion components of non-equilibrium, low-temperature plasmas. The data types supported by LXCat are electron- and ion-scattering cross-sections with neutrals (total and differential), interaction potentials, oscillator strengths, and electron- and ion-swarm/transport parameters. Online tools allow users to identify and compare the data through plotting routines, and use the data to generate swarm parameters and reaction rates with the integrated electron Boltzmann solver. In this review, the historical evolution of the project and some perspectives on its future are discussed together with a tutorial review for using data from LXCat.

Analytical approximation of cross sections of collisions of electrons with atoms of inert gases

“…During selecting data for approximating the energy dependence of the electron-atomic collision cross sections, we used various analytical formulas, which contain both original experimental data and data from various databases [3][4][5][6][11][12][13][14][15][16][17].…”

“…Electron-atom cross section data are important in a large variety of applications and fields (see for instance [1][2][3]). In a low-temperature plasma, electrons acquire energy from electromagnetic fields and expend it in collisions with atoms.…”

“…The bibliography on the cross sections of electron-atomic collisions includes many thousands of works, and probably an exhaustive review and selection of data is contained in [1][2][3][4][5][6]. But it should be borne in mind that the critical analysis of the results of experimental data in the review work is very difficult due to the fact that the necessary initial data can only be available to the authors of the work.…”

Two-temperature balance equations implementation, numerical validation and application to H2O–He microwave induced plasmas

“…In the modeled heat conduction in equation (47), it is assumed that the heat transfer loss is S q = q c . Inter-diffusion heat transfer loss is explained in diffusion loss section 5.5.…”

“…Figures 14 and 15 show the variation of H 2 density and gas temperature versus time in three different afterglow simulations. 'Conductive cooling' refers to the afterglow simulation that cooling with surroundings is considered by the conduction loss (47). The surrounding temperature is set 300 K for this simulation.…”