A validation study was performed on a capacitively coupled argon discharge
to determine the most suitable models for chemistry and electron
transport. Chemical reaction rate and electron transport models choices include
equilibrium or non-equilibrium electron EDFs. Experimental studies
performed by our collaborative partners in the Colorado School of Mines.
Conditions for the studies are 138, 315, and 618 mTorr where the cycle averaged
power varied at 20, 50, and 80 Watts in which the voltage supply
was driven at 13.56 MHz. Simulations were performed using pressures and
voltage used in experiments. The most accurate case was for 138 mTorr
at 50 Watts using a non-Maxwellian EDF based chemistry (called Bolsig+
chemistry) and a constant electron momentum transfer cross section of 20
Angstroms which was computed from Boeuf’s paper; this model accurately
modeled power deposition to within 2.6%. Furthermore, species number densities, electron temperature, and sheath thicknesses are obtained. Using
Bolsig+ chemistry resulted in 20,000K higher electron temperatures than
using Arrhenius chemistry rates. Results indicate that power deposition occurs
due to electrons gaining energy from the sheath which in turn bombard
neutral species producing metastable argon. / text
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTEXAS/oai:repositories.lib.utexas.edu:2152/ETD-UT-2010-08-1877 |
| Date | 20 December 2010 |
| Creators | Min, Timothy T. |
| Source Sets | University of Texas |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | thesis |
| Format | application/pdf |
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