Modeling & Simulation I

Low-temperature plasmas find extensive use across diverse industrial applications, frequently exhibiting kinetic phenomena that can be investigated via the Particle-In-Cell (PIC) technique. In this context, we present recent developments in EDIPIC-2D, an open-source 2D PIC code designed to simulate a broad range of low-temperature plasma systems relevant to space propulsion [1], plasma processing [2,3], and fundamental plasma research [4,5,6].

 

Building on a prior 1D version [7], the code incorporates a standard electrostatic explicit momentum-conserving scheme (in both Cartesian and cylindrical geometries), as well as a direct implicit scheme with the Darwin [8] approximation for self-consistent electromagnetic field modeling [9]. The code is parallelized using the Message Passing Interface (MPI) standard and features state-of-the-art collision models. It accounts for different surface materials, leading to various electron and ion-induced secondary electron emissions. The inclusion of inner objects within the computational domain allows for the modeling of more realistic Cartesian and Cylindrical geometries.

 

The code has been benchmarked in multiple studies [10-12] and is actively used by both industry partners and academic researchers, particularly within the Princeton Collaborative Low-Temperature Plasma Research Facility.

 

We exemplify the code’s capabilities by going through recently published examples [1-6] and many others.

Funding acknowledgement

This work is supported by Princeton Collaborative Research Facility (PCRF) supported by the U.S. DOE under contract No. DE-AC02-09CH11466.