Two-Dimensional Self-Consistent Radio Frequency Plasma Simulations Relevant to the Gaseous Electronics Conference RF Reference Cell

• Published in: Journal of research of the National Institute of Standards and Technology Vol. 100; no. 4; pp. 473 - 494
• Main Authors: Lymberopoulos, Dimitris P, Economou, Demetre J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States [Gaithersburg, MD] : U.S. Dept. of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology 01.07.1995
• Subjects: rf discharges; plasma processing; plasma modeling; two-dimensional simulation; argon discharge; reference cell
• ISSN: 1044-677X; 2165-7254
• DOI: 10.6028/jres.100.036

Over the past few years multidimensional self-consistent plasma simulations including complex chemistry have been developed which are promising tools for furthering our understanding of reactive gas plasmas and for reactor design and optimization. These simulations must be benchmarked against experimental data obtained in well-characterized systems such as the Gaseous Electronics Conference (GEC) reference cell. Two-dimensional simulations relevant to the GEC Cell are reviewed in this paper with emphasis on fluid simulations. Important features observed experimentally, such as off-axis maxima in the charge density and hot spots of metastable species density near the electrode edges in capacitively-coupled GEC cells, have been captured by these simulations.