Conductivity effects during the transition from collisionless to collisional regimes in cylindrical inductively coupled plasmas

Abstract

Abstract A numerical model is developed to study the conductivity effects during the transition from collisionless to collisional regimes in cylindrical inductively coupled argon plasmas at pressures of 0.1–20 Pa. The model consists of electron kinetics module, electromagnetics module, and global model module. It allows for self-consistent description of non-local electron kinetics and collisionless electron heating in terms of the conductivity of homogeneous hot plasma. Simulation results for non-local conductivity case are compared with predictions for the assumption of local conductivity case. Electron densities and effective electron temperatures under non-local and local conductivities show obvious differences at relatively low pressures. As increasing pressure, the results under the two cases of conductivities tend to converge, which indicates the transition from collisionless to collisional regimes. At relatively low pressures the local negative power absorption is predicted by non-local conductivity case but not captured by local conductivity case. The two-dimensional (2D) profiles of electron current density and electric field are coincident for local conductivity case in the pressure range of interest, but it roughly holds true for non-local conductivity case at very high pressure. In addition, an effective conductivity with consideration of non-collisional stochastic heating effect is introduced. The effective conductivity almost reproduces the electron density and effective electron temperature for the non-local conductivity case, but does not capture the non-local relation between electron current and electric field as well as the local negative power absorption that is observed for non-local conductivity case at low pressures.