The movement and thermal history of an aluminium particle in a rf plasma generator

Abstract

In previous studies on plasma-particle interaction, as far as we know,the rf plasma flow and temperature fields are all simulated by the non-self-consistentone-dimensional electromagnetic (1-D EM) field model. In the present paper, thecomplete self-consistent two-dimensional electromagnetic (2-D EM) field model in-corporating the axial Lorentz force component, which is neglected in the 1-D model,is firstly adopted to calculate the aluminium particle trajectory and thermal historyin atmospheric rf Ar plasma with the particle evaporation effect included. The cru-cial effect of reverse flow within the coil region on the particle trajectory is discoveredand the results show that the 2-D EM field model must be adopted instead of the1-D model when the plasma-particle interaction is studied. The effect of carrier gasflux on the particle movement and heating are also studied, resulting in some usefulconclusions for both plasma theory and application.