Numerical analysis of the electron energy distribution function in a CO2 laser discharge

Abstract

A new simplified approach to the numerical solution of the Boltzmann equation in a collisional plasma is suggested and applied to the plasma of the fast-axial-flow CO₂ laser. Our results of computation of the electron energy distribution function (EEDF) are shown to be consistent with the results of similar computations based on the ELENDIF package. It is pointed out that most superelastic collisions, dissociative attachment of CO₂, ionization of He, thermal translational motion of molecules and their rotation can be safely ignored in the computations of the EEDF. On the other hand the error in the estimate of the ratio of the external electric field to the molecular density is the main source of error in the computation of the EEDF.