Electric field filamentation and higher harmonic
generation in a very high frequency capacitive
discharges
Sharma, SarveshwarORCID: 0000-0002-0642-0247, Sirse, NishantORCID: 0000-0002-7063-4100, Sen, Abhijit, Wu, J. S. and Turner, Miles M.ORCID: 0000-0001-9713-6198
(2019)
Electric field filamentation and higher harmonic
generation in a very high frequency capacitive
discharges.
Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, 52
(36).
ISSN 0022-3727
The effects of the discharge voltage on the formation and nature of electric
field transients in a symmetric, collisionless, very high frequency, capacitively coupled
plasma are studied using a self-consistent particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation code. At a
driving frequency of 60 MHz and 5 mTorr of argon gas pressure, the discharge voltage
is varied from 10 V to 150 V for a fixed discharge gap. It is observed that an increase in
the discharge voltage causes filamentation in the electric field transients and to create
multiple higher harmonics in the bulk plasma. Correspondingly, higher harmonics, up
to 7th harmonic, in the discharge current are also observed. The power in the higher
harmonics increases with a rise in the discharge voltage. The plasma density continues
to increase with the discharge voltage but in a non-linear manner, whereas, the bulk
electron temperature decreases. Meanwhile, the electron energy distribution function
(EEDF) evolves from a Maxwellian at lower discharge voltages to a bi-Maxwellian at
higher discharge voltages
Metadata
Item Type:
Article (Published)
Refereed:
Yes
Additional Information:
Article number: 365201
Uncontrolled Keywords:
capacitively coupled plasmas; electric field transients; stochastic heating; particle-in-cell simulation