The Effect of Inertial Terms in the Momentum Equation in Fluid Simulation of High Density Plasma Discharge

The validity of the frequently used drift-diusion representation of the momentum equation is investigated in uid simulations of high-density plasma discharges. The drift-diusion expressions are good approximations for both the electrons and ions at high pressure. However, for low pressure, the inertial term cannot be neglected in the ion momentum equation, although the drift-diusion representation of electrons is still valid. The available criterion for the valid pressure regime is vB= ..i=e;NL 1; where vB is the Bohm velocity, i=e;N is the ion/electron-neutral collision freuquency and L is the dimension of the system. In addition, a new method to treat the inertial terms by introducing an eective ambipolar electric eld, Ee , is proposed. The results are compared to the full ion momentum equation case. KCI Citation Count: 8