On characteristics of sheath damping near a dielectric wall with secondary electron emission

A preliminary investigation is conducted to study the characteristics of sheath damping near a dielectric wall with secondary electron emission (SEE). Making use of the linear analysis of the sheath stability, we have found two major contributions to the sheath damping, one similar to the Landau damping in uniform plasmas and another determined by local electric field and electron density of the steady-state sheath. It indicates that in a classical sheath regime the damping in the sheath region monotonically increases towards the wall and decreases with the enhancement of SEE effect. In order to verify the theoretical analysis, sheath oscillation processes induced by an initial disturbance are simulated with a time-dependent one-dimensional (1D) sheath model. Numerical results obtained are consistent with the theoretical analysis qualitatively. (physics of gases, plasmas, and electric discharges)