Estimation of impurity release from planar liquid surface in plasma

Abstract

A liquid metallic surface exposed to a plasma interacts with ions and electrons numerously. The surface becomes charged. Subsequently, the electric field is formed via the balance of incoming ion and electron currents. The kinetic energies and the momentum of the incoming ions and electrons are transferred to the surface. This is enhanced by the self-generated electric field and gives rise to notable pressures and energy fluxes on the surface. By adopting several plasma and liquid parameters to the physical models, the time evolution of the surface temperature can be characterized with the net energy flux, the net pressure, and the net impurity outgoing flux. The study suggests that electron temperature and ion mass significantly govern, but the ion to electron temperature ratio does not, the trend of the surface temperature. Besides, it is found that at long elapsed time at which evaporation becomes strong, the energy and impurity fluxes reduce in conjunction with the rate of change of the surface temperature lessens.