Progress on the development of a 2-D PIC/Monte Carlo model of glow discharges

There are several computational approaches that have been and are being implemented for the investigation of plasma processing discharges. One-dimensional electrostatic PIC calculations have proven useful in modeling the bulk properties of discharges far from the edges and have yielded good agreement with experiment for ion distributions in the sheath region. The value of Pic methods is that they follow the evolution of an N-body system unconstrained by equilibrium requirements. Gaseous discharges are in general far from equilibrium. Electrons in the bulk region and ions in the sheath can have energies greatly exceeding the neutral gas temperature and can be distributed in a highly non-Maxwellian fashion. One dimensional models are incapable of treating flow and transport of reactants in reactors properly. Geometrical features are also neglected. Modeling the more recently developed high density reactors, such as the Hitachi ECRH source, requires at least two-dimensional and possibly three-dimensional electromagnetic models. Therefore, at Los Alamos we have chosen to address these problems with the MERLIN code. In this paper we will discuss our progress toward developing this code. We will describe, briefly the physics that we are including in this model. We will discuss a test problem that is being used to exercise most of the new features that have recently been added to MERLIN. Finally, we will discuss our future efforts