Numerical study of effect of secondary electron emission on discharge characteristics in low pressure capacitive RF argon discharge

Based on the drift and diffusion approximation theory, a 1D fluid model on capacitively coupled RF argon glow discharge at low pressure is established to study the effect of secondary electron emission (SEE) on the discharge characteristics. The model is numerically solved by using a finite difference method and the numerical results are obtained. The numerical results indicate that when the SEE coefficient is larger, the plasma density is higher and the time of reaching steady state is longer. It is also found that the cycle-averaged electric field, electric potential, and electron temperature change a little as the SEE coefficient is increased. Moreover, the discharge characteristics in some nonequilibrium discharge processes with different SEE coefficients have been compared. The analysis shows that when the SEE coefficient is varied from 0.01 to 0.3, the cycle-averaged electron net power absorption, electron heating rate, thermal convective term, electron energy dissipation, and ionization all have different degrees of growth. While the electron energy dissipation and ionization are quite special, there appear two peaks near each sheath region in the discharge with a relatively larger SEE coefficient. In this case, the discharge is certainly operated in a hybrid α-γ-mode.