Numerical simulation of the sustaining discharge in radio frequency hollow cathode discharge in argon

Abstract

In this paper, a two-dimensional fluid model was developed to study the radio frequency (RF) hollow cathode discharge (HCD) in argon at 1 Torr. The evolutions of the particle density distribution and the ionization rate distribution in RF HCD at 13.56 MHz indicate that the discharge mainly occurs inside the hollow cathode. The spatio-temporal distributions of the ionization rate and the power deposition within the hollow cathode imply that sheath oscillation heating is the primary mechanism to sustain the RF HCD, whereas secondary electron emission plays a negligible role. However, as driving frequency decreases, secondary electron heating becomes a dominant mechanism to sustain the discharge in RF hollow cathode.

Study on radial uniformity of large aperture capacitively coupled plasma

“…In this paper, a two-dimensional fluid model is used to study the uniformity of capacitively coupled plasma. This simulation method has been reported and verified in many literatures [5][6] . Figure 1 shows the geometry of the reactor model.…”

PIC/MCC Simulation of Radio Frequency Hollow Cathode Discharge in Nitrogen

“…They concluded that the hollow cathode effect (HCE) is produced by secondary electron emission due to ions bombardment and secondary electron acceleration in the sheath is the main heating mechanism under the simulated conditions [5] . Recently, Jiang X X et al simulated an rf-HCD using a fluid model, and confirmed that the main mechanism to sustain the rf-HCD in argon is sheath oscillation heating [6] . In the experimental measurements and theoretical simulation reports mentioned above, there is no specific description of the dynamics of charged particles in rf-HCD and the difference of electronic pendulum motion between dc-HCD and rf-HCD.…”

“…While a lot of work has been done on the HCD by numerical simulations and experiments, most of them has been concerned with dc discharges [11−14] . For rf-HCD, numerical simulations are less and the physics processes is still not completely clear, especially the main heating mechanism to sustain the HCD [5,6,10] . It is important to recognize that the geometric sizes involved are small (typically a few millimeters) in HCD, and experimental diagnosis is very difficult.…”

Range and similarity of hollow cathode discharge in argon

“…This phenomenon was first observed by Townsend in 1953 [1] and later was called 'hollow cathode effect' or 'hollow cathode mode' (HCM) [2]. Although HCM has been found for >60 years, many investigations on HCD are still performed [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13].…”