A benchmark study of a capacitively coupled oxygen discharge of the oopd1 particle-in-cell Monte Carlo code

Abstract

The oopd1 particle-in-cell Monte Carlo collision (PIC-MCC) code is used to simulate a capacitively coupled discharge in oxygen. oopd1 is a one-dimensional object-oriented PIC-MC code in which the model system has one spatial dimension and three velocity components. It contains a model for planar geometry and will contain models for cylindrical and spherical geometries, and replaces the xpdx1 series, which is not object-oriented. The oopd1 also allows for different weights of simulation particles and relativistic treatment of electrons. The revised oxygen model includes, in addition to electrons, the oxygen molecule in the ground state, the oxygen atom in the ground state, the negative ion O− and the positive ions O+ and . The cross sections for the collisions among the oxygen species have been significantly revised from earlier work using the xpdp1 code and the electron kinematics have been enhanced. Here we make a benchmark study and compare the oopd1 code to the well-established planar xpdp1 code and discuss the differences using a limited cross section set with ions, O− ions and electrons as the charged particles. We compare the electron energy distribution function, the electron temperature profile, the density profiles of charged particles and electron heating rates for a capacitively coupled oxygen discharge at 50 mTorr with electrode separation of 4.5 cm. Then we explore the effect of adding O atoms and O+ ions on the overall discharge.