Ion temperature profile importance in collisional sheath modelling

Abstract

Abstract A plasma fluid model is being developed for the simulation of a direct current plasma discharge simulation including the sheath regions. The code uses a second order centered finite difference scheme and time integration is done by strong stability preserving third order Runge-Kutta method. The separation of scalar and vectorial quantities in two different grids gives stable results. After validation by comparison with theoretical ion sheath profiles, a one dimensional direct current argon discharge was simulated and compared to 1D3v particle-in-cell simulation results. It is shown that the inclusion of a non constant ion temperature profile is mandatory in fluid models in order to recover correct increase of ion velocity in sheaths and thus to simulate direct current (DC) discharges where collisions are not negligible in the sheaths.