Particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo collision simulation of the ionization process of surface-wave plasma discharges resonantly excited by surface plasmon polaritons

Journal Article · Fri Mar 15 00:00:00 EDT 2013 · Physics of Plasmas

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4794736· OSTI ID:22107718

Zhaoquan, Chen ^[1]; Qiubo, Ye ^[1]; Guangqing, Xia ^[2]; Lingli, Hong; Yelin, Hu; Xiaoliang, Zheng; Ping, Li ^[1]; Qiyan, Zhou ^[1]; Xiwei, Hu; Minghai, Liu ^[3]

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1. College of Electrical and Information Engineering, Anhui University of Science and Technology, Huainan, Anhui 232001 (China)
2. State Key Laboratory of Structural Analysis for Industrial Equipment, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian, Liaoning 116024 (China)
3. State Key Laboratory of Advanced Electromagnetic Engineering and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, Hubei 430074 (China)

Although surface-wave plasma (SWP) sources have many industrial applications, the ionization process for SWP discharges is not yet well understood. The resonant excitation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) has recently been proposed to produce SWP efficiently, and this work presents a numerical study of the mechanism to produce SWP sources. Specifically, SWP resonantly excited by SPPs at low pressure (0.25 Torr) are modeled using a two-dimensional in the working space and three-dimensional in the velocity space particle-in-cell with the Monte Carlo collision method. Simulation results are sampled at different time steps, in which the detailed information about the distribution of electrons and electromagnetic fields is obtained. Results show that the mode conversion between surface waves of SPPs and electron plasma waves (EPWs) occurs efficiently at the location where the plasma density is higher than 3.57 Multiplication-Sign 10{sup 17} m{sup -3}. Due to the effect of the locally enhanced electric field of SPPs, the mode conversion between the surface waves of SPPs and EPWs is very strong, which plays a significant role in efficiently heating SWP to the overdense state.

• OSTI ID: 22107718
• Journal Information: Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 20, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2013 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
COLLISIONS
ELECTRIC FIELDS
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
ELECTRON PLASMA WAVES
ELECTRONS
IONIZATION
MODE CONVERSION
MONTE CARLO METHOD
NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
PARTICLES
PLASMA DENSITY
PLASMA SIMULATION
PLASMONS
SURFACES
THREE-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
TRANSPORT THEORY
TWO-DIMENSIONAL CALCULATIONS
WAVE PROPAGATION