In this work, experimental and theoretical study of pulsed discharge in argon has been carried out. The experimental data on the dynamics of electron density, electron temperature, and plasma potential have been obtained by probe measurements (using hairpin and Langmuir probes) in the afterglow between two RF pulses. This dynamics is thoroughly analyzed by comparison with the results of the kinetic PIC MC simulations. The main processes that cause electron cooling have been revealed for two different time stages. The first afterglow stage is characterized by the rapid decrease of the electron temperature. During this stage, inelastic electron collisions with Ar atoms in the ground state play an important role in the electron cooling. During the second long-scale stage, only diffusion along the electron energy scale via Coulomb or elastic collisions can provide the observed effect of the gradual electron cooling. The effects of elastic and Coulomb collisions on the electron cooli...

中文翻译：

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电子冷却的实验和PIC MCC研究—低压RF CCP氩气余辉的再加热和等离子体密度衰减

在这项工作中，对氩气中的脉冲放电进行了实验和理论研究。通过在两个RF脉冲之间的余辉中进行探针测量（使用发夹和Langmuir探针），获得了有关电子密度，电子温度和等离子体电势动力学的实验数据。通过与动力学PIC MC仿真的结果进行比较，彻底分析了这种动力学。导致电子冷却的主要过程已经揭示了两个不同的时间段。第一余辉阶段的特征在于电子温度的迅速降低。在此阶段，与基态Ar原子发生的非弹性电子碰撞在电子冷却中起重要作用。在第二个长期阶段 只有通过库仑或弹性碰撞沿着电子能级扩散才能提供观察到的逐渐电子冷却的效果。弹性和库仑碰撞对电子冷却的影响