OOPIC Simulation of a Cylindrical Magnetron Glow Discharge

Mark Johnson, Fang Yee, Mick Cipollo, Krystyna Truszkowska and John Verboncoeur

Business and Industry Symposium (BIS 08)
Crowne Plaza Ottawa Hotel, Ottawa, Canada, April 14-17, 2008

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Summary

Adherent, erosion, and corrosion resistant coatings are critical to the performance of high performance armament systems. We are currently developing a cylindrical magnetron sputtering process for coating the bore of large caliber cannons to extend service life. We are also developing a novel in situ plasma cleaning technique for conditioning the surface to promote adhesion of the sputter deposited coatings. A plasma cleaning device (PCD) has been designed to etch both internal surfaces of a cylindrical magnetron system: the substrate and the sputter target. The design of the PCD is being optimized using plasma simulation tools. Particle-in-Cell (PIC) techniques have been employed to simulate a DC glow discharge around the substrate cleaning section of the PCD. The PIC model computes the particle distribution as well as the energies of the ions for a mixture of Neumann and Dirichlet boundary conditions in a non-uniform magnetic field. In this paper, the results from the simulations of the glow discharge near the internal surface of the barrel are compared to experimental data obtained from a retarding grid analyzer.

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