Low-energy electron distribution in an electron-beam-generated argon plasma

Abstract

The distribution function at low energy, u<or=15 eV, has been calculated for an electron-beam generated argon plasma. The Rockwood formalism (1973) has been used and discretised with non-equal energy steps. The calculations included all the interactions between electrons and ground or excited states of atomic and molecular argon, and used the results obtained in a previous paper (see J. Bretagne et al., 1981) for the high-energy part of the distribution. The optical nature of the various transitions has been taken into account. The calculated distribution function is compared with a Maxwellian distribution for different time-dependent energy ranges. The significant departures from this distribution are discussed.