Plasma sheath formation in a groove target

Ion and electron flux profiles could be affected by the geometric of the target. In this study, a groove target with the groove width close to the ion gyro-radius was used to investigate this effect to the sheath formation. Several other types of target were also studied for comparison. It was found that the unbalance of ion and electron fluxes induced potential differences in the targets. Due to the potential difference electric currents are generated in the targets to compensated for the differences. When insulators are inserted in the targets, the sheath potentials change to balance ion and electron fluxes at the each position in the targets. (author)