Abstract of MAGPIC2D Project

Radio-frequency sheaths are a well-known phenomenon in low-temperature plasmas, but they also occur in magnetically confined plasmas designed for fusion applications, particularly when electromagnetic heating techniques are employed. The behaviour of the sheaths in this context is of interest both because of the effect on erosion of plasma facing surfaces by sputtering and possible effects on the stability of the plasma near the wall, with possible consequences for the efficiency of plasma heating. The MagPic code is a newly developed Particle-in-Cell Monte-Carlo code that simulates radio-frequency sheaths in the presence of external magnetic fields. It was the subject of the previous HLST project MAGPICP which added MPI parallelism using spatial decomposition. Since the initial project the code has undergone significant development which has resulted in the MPI approach used in code relating to the field solver becoming invalid. There is also a large potential for optimisation to allow the code to simulate large problem sizes applicable to radio frequency heating antenna. It is currently being used to study the effect of the magnetic field angle on sheath behaviour in conditions that are suitable for comparison with experiment and relevant to those found in fusion devices. The kinetic approach adopted by MagPic can potentially reveal behaviour not accounted for in current fluid and analytical models used to represent the effects of the sheath. This can improve the reliability and effectiveness of simulations used in the design of radio-frequency heating systems and aid in the development of future simulation tools.