Modification of the Coulomb Logarithm due to Electron-Neutral Collisions.

We demonstrate that in partially ionized plasmas, Coulomb scattering can be significantly perturbed by electron collisions with neutral gas particles, and that this effect can be incorporated in the Coulomb collision terms of the Boltzmann equation by a modification of the classical Coulomb logarithm. We show that Boltzmann transport calculations using this modified Coulomb logarithm are in excellent agreement, for a sensitive model problem and a wide range of conditions, with particle simulations describing the many-body Coulomb interactions from first principles.

Wall current probe: a non-invasive in situ plasma diagnostic for space and time resolved current density distribution measurement.

In the context of low temperature plasma research, we propose a wall current probe to determine the local charged particle fluxes flowing to the chamber walls. This non-intrusive planar probe consists of an array of electrode elements which can be individually biased and for which the current can be measured separately. We detail the probe properties and present the ability of the diagnostic to be used as a space and time resolved measurement of the ion and electron current density at the chamber walls. This diagnostic will be relevant to study the electron transport in magnetized low-pressure plasmas.

Effective-viscosity approach for nonlocal electron kinetics in inductively coupled plasmas.

In inductively coupled plasmas, nonlocal electron kinetics lead to the anomalous skin effect. We show that this can be approximately described through a fluid equation for electron momentum including a viscosity term with an effective-viscosity coefficient. The solution of this momentum equation coupled with the Maxwell equations is in good agreement with results from a particle-in-cell simulation over a wide range of conditions, reproducing the nonmonotonic structure of the anomalous skin with sometimes local negative power absorption.