EFFECTS OF ELECTRON ELECTRON COLLISIONS ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF DC AND MICROWAVE DISCHARGES IN ARGON AT LOW-PRESSURES

• Type: Article in International Scientific Journal
• Date: 1992

Authors

P. A. Sá (Author) FEUP; J. Loureiro (Author) Other; C. M. Ferreira (Author) Other

Journal

Title: Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics

Vol. 25

Pages: 960-966

ISSN: 0022-3727

Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing

Indexing

ISI Web of Knowledge - 58 Citations

ISI Web of Science

Scopus - 61 Citations

Scientific classification

FOS: Natural sciences

Other information

Authenticus ID: P-001-PFQ

DOI: 10.1088/0022-3727/25/6/010

Abstract (EN): We present a systematic investigation of the effects caused by electron-electron collisions on the electron kinetics in Ar under the action of DC and microwave fields. The analysis is based on solutions to the homogeneous electron Boltzmann equation using the effective field approximation, i.e. assuming that the electron energy distribution function is time independent. The calculated electron transport parameters and ionization coefficient are used together with a generalized charged particle balance equation to derive the characteristics for the maintenance field and the mean absorbed power per electron for steady-state DC and microwave discharges in Ar. Results are provided for the cases of (i) single-step ionization; (ii) multi-step ionization, via the metastable and the resonance levels of Ar. In the latter case a collisional-radiative model is used to determine the populations of these levels. It is shown that electron-electron collisions have a large effect on the discharge characteristics in the microwave case, even for relatively low degrees of ionization. Agreement with experiment is greatly improved by taking into account such collisions in the multi-step ionization model.

Language: English

Type (Professor's evaluation): Scientific

No. of pages: 7