Date of Award
2010
Thesis Type
Masters
Document Type
Dissertation
Divisions
Faculty of Science
Department
Department of Physics
Institution
Universiti Malaya
Abstract
Glow discharges are used in a large number of applications, and it is one of the most common plasmas used in industry. The most important application of glow discharges is probably in microelectronic industry, and material technology. Studies were conducted on the effect of various parameters such as driving voltage, pressure and interelectrode gap length on the fundamental properties of the glow discharge plasma using the XPDP1 simulation code developed by UC Berkeley. The XPDP1 code is a one-dimensional bounded electrostatic simulation code for parallel-plate capacitively coupled plasma system, with an external coupled circuit which may include R, L, and C elements, as well as AC, DC, and ramped current and voltage sources. The code is employing the Particle-in-Cell (PIC) model for particle kinetics simulation and Monte Carlo collision (MCC) model for particle collisions simulation. The basic parameters in the simulations were selected based on the system and experimental work by Safaai [3] in Plasma Research Laboratory, University of Malaya. Good agreement with the experimental data was obtained from the simulation. Further investigation of some of the plasma characteristics which were not measured experimentally were also presented. The applications of the simulation model to other types of glow discharge including RF powered discharges were also investigated. The profiles of various plasma parameters were collected from the simulation result, and the structure and behavior of the glow discharge were clearly identified and observed. Electron heating mode transition was observed in the case of low pressure (0.5 Torr). The electron energy distribution evolved from Druyvesteyn type to Maxwellian type when the heating mode changed from collisional ohmic heating to collisionless stochastic heating.
Additional Information
Dissertation (M.A.) – Faculty of Science, Universiti Malaya, 2010.
Recommended Citation
Shu San, Low, "Computer simulation of low temperature plasma." (2010). Student Works (2010-2019). 119.
https://knova.um.edu.my/student_works_2010s/119
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