Plasma at Atmospheric Pressure: Fluidic Modeling and Parallel Computing

Plasma-assisted processing and deposition of materials is an important component of modern industrial applications, with plasma reactors sharing 30%-40% of manufacturing steps in microelectronics production. An intriguing niche of flexible electronics requires a specialty plasma reactor to provide high-throughput deposition method applicable to roll-to-roll processing of flexible substrates. We create a numerical model to simulate such a reactor and to optimize the experimental unit for better efficiency. We focussed on basic processes responsible for plasma generation, recombination, and sustainment, as well as their implementation with numerical algorithms using high-performance parallel approach. Discussion of source terms and comparison of numerical data with the experimental results are provided. Estimation of typical range for plasma parameters is made using results of a Boltzmann solver and experimentally acquired atomic data. The proposed model can be used as a standalone tool for understanding the effects produced by change in physical parameters or it can generate useful data as an input to a more complicated 2-D problem of plasma convective transport.