Influence of the Spatial Distribution of the Dust Particle Density on the Radial Profile Formation of Particles and Fluxes in a Dusty Plasma of DC Glow Discharge

Abstract

In this article, the results of numerical simulation regarding the influence of different dust particles’ spatial distributions in the plasma of a positive column (PC) of direct current glow discharge in argon are presented. The effect of homogeneous dust clouds of different radii located on the axis of a gas discharge tube, uniform annular clouds of dust particles, and clouds with inhomogeneous dust density on the formation of the main scenarios of radial distributions of particles and fluxes in the PC plasma was studied for a wide range of dust particle densities. It was found that similar (when all three density profiles of electrons, ions, and charged dust inside the dust cloud are parallel) and nonmonotonic radial distributions of charged particles are formed only when the external region between the boundary of the dust cloud and the wall of the tube is of sufficient size to provide the necessary level of ionization to maintain a fixed discharge current. The possibility of the formation of nonmonotonic charge profiles in the case of increasing and falling nonmonotonic distributions of the dust grains is shown.