Ion-neutral collision effect on ion-ion two-stream-instability near sheath-presheath boundary in two-ion-species plasmas

Abstract

Recent studies have demonstrated that the two-ion-stream-instability occurs near the plasma boundary and makes the ions reach the ‘modified Bohm velocity’ at the sheath edge. In most low-temperature plasmas, however, the ion-neutral collisions can disturb the growth of instability to occur frequently, and the ions exit the plasma boundary with their own Bohm velocities. We report some experimental observations regarding this issue. The spatial variations of the ion drift velocities and the space potential near the sheath edge were measured in Ar/Xe mixture plasmas by increasing the total pressure in the range of 0.5–2.1 mTorr. The results show that the instability cannot occur above a certain pressure condition and that is consistent with the theoretically driven pressure criteria for the onset of the instability.