Self-consistent particle modelling of dc magnetron discharges of an O₂/Ar mixture

Abstract

The characteristics of planar magnetron discharges of an O2/Ar mixture are clarified using the particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo method. The simulation is carried out for axisymmetrical magnetic fields under the condition of constant total gas pressure of 5 mTorr and constant applied voltage of 500 V. The fraction of oxygen partial pressure, p_O2, is changed from 30 % to 70 %. In the case of pO2 = 50% the order of the magnitude of number densities is ne>nAr+>nO2+>nO+>>nO-. As pO2 increases, the electrical field becomes weaker, the cathode sheath becomes thicker, nAr+ decreases, nO2+ and nO+ first increase and then decrease, and the total flux of positive ions onto the cathode decreases. The effect of the arrangement of a magnet system on the total ion flux is also examined.

Mode Transition of Filaments in Packed-Bed Dielectric Barrier Discharges

“…Dirichlet boundary conditions are adopted in the y direction, and Neumann conditions are used in the x direction. A standard MCC method [53] is used to account for the electron impact elastic, excitation, ionization and attachment collisions with N 2 and O 2 gas molecules, as listed in Table 1. The cross sections and threshold energies used for these reactions are adopted from the Refs.…”

Magnetical asymmetric effect in geometrically and electrically symmetric capacitively coupled plasma

“…This significantly reduces the computational cost while keeping the same accuracy. Furthermore, a standard MCC model is employed to deal with elastic, excitation, and ionization collisions for electrons and elastic and charge transfer collisions for ions, respectively. The cross sections data used in this paper are adopted from ref …”

Modeling of dc magnetron plasma for sputtering: Transport of sputtered copper atoms

“…A number of experimental 1-4 and numerical studies on dc magnetron plasmas have been performed over the last three decades. In order to investigate the characteristics of the maintenance of a dc magnetron plasma at low pressure, various kinds of particle models have been employed, e.g., a trajectory tracing of secondary electrons emitted from a target, 5 a particle-in-cell/Monte Carlo ͑PIC/MC͒ model 6 using three-dimensional ͑3D͒ Cartesian coordinates [7][8][9][10][11] or axisymmetrical coordinates, [12][13][14] although the computational load of these system is heavy. A hybrid model in which bulk electrons and all ions are treated by the relaxation continuum ͑RCT͒ model and fast electrons mainly in the sheath are traced by the particle model has been examined in a dc magnetron discharge with a reasonable computational time.…”