A simplified model joining the sheath and the plasma in electronegative plasmas

Abstract

An extension of the previous work which only dealt with the sheath zone is used to analyze the wall-plasma interaction in electronegative plasmas. Ionization is introduced as the presheath mechanism. This extension includes the joining of the sheath and the plasma solutions. For certain plasma parameters a stratified presheath is obtained. In this case, the plasma and the sheath solutions are matched in a very simplified way, by introducing a discontinuity in the electric field. This discontinuity is equivalent to consideration of a negatively charged layer between the presheath and the sheath. The parameter space region in which this matching should be made has been delimited. The model includes the previous one in the limiting case of no ionization.