Theory of the presheath in a weakly ionized plasma with hot neutrals

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
In this paper a kinetic theory of the boundary layer of a weakly ionized plasma in contact with a perfectly absorbing wall is presented. The ion kinetics is governed by charge exchange collisions with neutrals of finite temperature; the collision frequency is constant. Based on the assumption that the Debye length is small compared with all other lengths of the system, a self-consistent two scale (presheath–sheath) analysis is performed. In contrast to Emmert’s analysis [Phys. Fluids 23, 803 (1980)] of the corresponding collision-free system, the sheath edge shows the usual field singularity. It is shown that in the case where the electron and neutral temperatures are of the same order a large fraction of ions enters the sheath with a multiple of the electron thermal energy.

This publication has 22 references indexed in Scilit: