Study of Plasma Sheath in the Presence of Dust Particles in an Inhomogeneous Magnetic Field

Abstract

In plasma processing devices, negatively charged dust particles appear as contaminants in etching, sputtering, and deposition processes. The dynamics of the dust particles at the edge region of the plasma plays an important role in such processes. The present study deals with a low-pressure plasma to investigate the effect of dust particles on the properties of plasma sheaths in the presence of a non-uniform magnetic field. A multi-fluid model is used to simulate the dynamics of electrons, ions, and dust particles. The governing equations for all the plasma species are solved numerically using the fourth-order Runge-Kutta (RK4) method. It has been observed that the presence of the dust particles significantly affects the plasma sheath parameters such as potential, electric field, particle density, and particle velocity. The present study is supposed to help in understanding the dynamics of negatively charged dust grains in the sheath. Therefore, the study may be helpful in the plasma processing of materials as well as in plasma wall interactions for various plasma-aided industrial applications