Investigation of the Electron Distribution Functions in Low Pressure Electron Cyclotron Resonance Discharges

Abstract

The interest in low pressure electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) discharges is motivated by the wide use of these discharges in plasma-aided materials processing and as a source of highly charged ions. The electron distribution function (EDF) is far from Maxwellian in these discharges and has been subject of many investigations. For calculation the EDF in ECR discharges we present in this paper the electron Boltzmann kinetic equation (0D in space and 1D in energy) averaged over fast electron bouncing and over collisions. A similar procedure was applied to capacitively coupled plasma in Ref. 1, where a wide range of discharge parameters was explored. The validity of the fast modelling (FM) method is proved by comparison with Monte-Carlo simulations (1D in space and 2D in velocity).