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Presented paper describes a numerical study of discharge plasma motion. This non-stationary phenomenon with steep gradients and sharp peaks in unknowns is described as a coupled problem of convection-diffusion equation with source term for electron, ion densities and Poisson’s equation for electric potential. The numerical method is 2nd order of accuracy in space and time and it uses dynamical adaptation of unstructured triangular mesh. Results of numerical studies included size of computational domain, type of boundary conditions and numerical convergence test are presented.

Multichannel quantum defect theory is applied in the treatment of the dissociative recombination and vibrational excitation processes for the BeD+ ion in the 24 vibrational levels of its ground electronic state (). Three electronic symmetries of BeD∗∗ states (, , and ) are considered in the calculation of cross sections and the corresponding rate coefficients. The incident electron energy range is 10-5-2.7 eV and the electron temperature range is 100-5000 K. The vibrational dependence of these collisional processes is highlighted. The resulting data are useful in magnetic confinement fusion edge plasma modeling and spectroscopy, in devices with beryllium based main chamber materials, such as ITER and JET, and operating with the deuterium-tritium fuel mix. An extensive rate coefficients database is presented in graphical form and also by analytic fit functions whose parameters are tabulated in the supplementary material.

The mechanisms of carbon sticking reactions to C36 and C–C80 fullerenes were investigated with molecular dynamics simulations (MD) using the Second-generation Reactive Empirical Bond Order (SREBO) and Adaptive Intermolecular Reactive Empirical Bond Order (AIREBO) potentials that were specifically optimized for carbon-carbon interactions. Results showed the existence of three possible sticking configurations where the projectile atom can stick either to one, two or three atoms of the target fullerene. They also showed that although the two potentials give similar magnitudes for the sticking cross-sections, they yield fairly different results as far as sticking mechanisms and configurations at thermal collision-energies, i.e., in the range 0.05–0.5 eV, are concerned. While AIREBO, that takes into account the long-range Lennard-Jones interaction, essentially results in a surface-sticking configuration with a single atom of the target fullerene, SREBO potential yields both surface- and two neighbors-sticking (2N-sticking) configurations. The fullerene structure is preserved in the last configuration while it can be recovered by a 2000 K annealing in the former configuration. Results obtained with SREBO eventually showed larger sticking probabilities for C36 as compared with C80. In spite of this, the sticking cross-sections obtained for C80 are similar to or even larger than those obtained for C36 due to the larger size of C80 that compensates for its smaller sticking probabilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A simple experimental method to estimate the power effectively absorbed by a plasma is presented. It relies on a thermal management study that is applied to the whole discharge system, providing the energy released by the plasma and lost by convection and radiation at the reactor walls. The methodology is illustrated in the case of H2 Electron Cyclotron Resonance microwave plasma. Nevertheless, this method can be extended to a variety of electrical discharge or feed gases. Using this method, an experimental coupling efficiency of ∼22 ± ∼8% was derived. In comparison, an analytical balance of the plasma power absorption yields a theoretical coupling efficiency of ∼28 ± ∼9%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An aerosol sectional model that describes the space-time evolution of the size distribution of carbon particles produced in a graphite cathode sputtering discharge is presented. The model includes the coupled phenomena of particle growth processes, due to coagulation and molecular surface deposition, particle nucleation as inferred from a molecular growth process, particle charging in the plasma, and particle drift-diffusion transport in the electrode gap. Comparison between simulation results and experiments showed that the model yields a satisfactory prediction of the particle cloud density and particle mean diameter in the electrode gap. It also yields a satisfactory prediction of the particle size distribution. The calculated size distribution shows two particle-populations: a first one with a very small size and just above the nucleus diameter and a second population, with a larger size, that determines the mean-diameter of the particle cloud. The sectional model also shows that simple aerosol models assuming single size particles significantly overestimate the particle density although it yields a satisfactory prediction for the particle size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Microwave discharges of H2 admixed with CH4 in a moderate-pressure quartz bell jar reactor used for diamond deposition are studied numerically. The main chemical paths are identified, and the major species, transport effects, and reaction pathways that govern diamond plasmas are discussed.

A new study investigates the power coupling efficiency of a hydrogen microwave plasma reactor, using two-dimensional and zero-dimensional plasma models and optical emission spectroscopy.

The design and characterization of a multi-dipolar microwave electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) hydrogen plasma reactor are presented. In this configuration, 16 ECR sources are disposed uniformly along the azimuthal direction at a constant distance from the center of a cylindrical reactor. Several plasma diagnostics have been used to determine key parameters such as neutral species temperature; electron density and temperature; and H+, H2+, and H3+ ion energy distributions. The experimental characterization is supported by electromagnetic and magnetostatic field simulations as well as Particle In-Cell Monte Carlo Collisions simulations to analyze the observed ion energy distribution functions. Especially, we show that both electron density and temperature are spatially uniform, i.e., 1011 cm−3 and 3 eV, respectively. This plasma enables generating ion flux and energy in the ranges 1019–1022 ions m−2 s−1 and few keVs, respectively. The H2+ ion distribution function shows two populations which were attributed to surface effects. These features make this reactor particularly suitable for studying hydrogen plasma surface interaction under controlled conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the best ways to increase the diamond growth rate is to couple high microwave power to the plasma. Indeed, increasing the power density leads to increase gas temperature the atomic hydrogen density in the plasma bulk, and to produce more hydrogen and methyl at the diamond surface. Experimental and numerical approaches were used to study the microwave plasma under high power densities conditions. Gas temperature was measured by optical emission spectroscopy and H-atom density using actinometry. CH3-radical density was obtained using a 1D model that describes temperatures and plasma composition from the substrate to the top of the reactor. The results show that gas temperature in the plasma bulk, atomic hydrogen, and methyl densities at the diamond surface highly increase with the power density. As a consequence, measurements have shown that diamond growth rate also increases. At very high power density, we measured a growth rate of 40 μm/h with an H-atom density of 5 × 1017 cm–3 which corresponds to a H2 dissociation rate higher than 50%. Finally, we have shown that the growth rate can be framed between a lower and an upper limit as a function depending only on the maximum of H-atom density measured or calculated in the plasma bulk. The results also demonstrated that increasing fresh CH4 by an appropriate injection into the boundary layer is a potential way to increase the diamond growth rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]