Modeling of ion transport from ionization region to entrance of mass spectrometer in HiPIMS argon/Cr target

Abstract

Plasma global kinetic model coupled with the Monte Carlo method is used to study the ion transport in HiPIMS Ar/Cr target. The plasma kinetic global model is developed to study the time evolution of neutral, ion, and electron species created in the ionization region. To analyze the ion temporal spectra at the entrance of the mass spectrometer, a simple model based on the Monte Carlo technique is developed to track the ion trajectories from the ionization region to the mass spectrometer. The ion temporal spectra obtained by the global kinetic model in the ionization region are introduced in the Monte Carlo model as input data. The simulation results reveal a temporal shift of the ion spectra as well as their spreading in comparison with those obtained in the ionization region. Such temporal shapes of the ion spectra are more sensitive to the ion temperatures in the ionization region, and the position of the mass spectrometer is connected to the reactor. A satisfactory agreement between simulated ion temporal spectra and those measured by the mass spectrometer is obtained when we have represented the ion population energies by two Maxwellian distributions, where the first one corresponds to the low temperature and the second to the high temperature.